MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – A new US government report on the Boston Marathon terrorist attack blaming Russia for withholding vital information on the bomber is an attempt to excuse the poor performance of American law enforcement agencies, experts told RIA Novosti.
“To some degree we can assume that the accusations against Russia are a response to the criticism that the US was subject to following the blast: American law enforcement agencies received some sort of hints, instructions from their Russian colleagues urging them to pay attention to the Tsarnaevs. But no adequate reaction followed,” Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Russian council on foreign and defense policy said.
“Of course, this was a grave accusation. And now the agencies want to justify their actions,” Lukyanov said, adding that Russia provided the US with the information it saw necessary and sufficient for the inquiry.
“Russia sent the United States all the details it saw necessary. And it is the right of every security service to share the information they consider possible to send to another agency,” Lukyanov added.
According to Igor Korotchenko, an editor at National Defense Magazine, the report is politically motivated and comes as a response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
“I think that the FBI decided to take part in this mass anti-Russian hysteria that has swept the US in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis. Such statements are politicized,” Korotchenko said.
The new report by the US Office of Intelligence Community and the Department of Homeland Security says Russia concealed vital information on Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, following FBI requests for information two years prior to the attack.
In particular, the report blames Russia for withholding information about an intercepted telephone conversation between Tsarnaev and his mother in which they discussed Islamic jihad.
Russian law enforcement agencies have said that the US theory ignores the facts. In March 2011, the Russian Federal Security Service sent a letter to the FBI containing details about Tsarnaev. Russia insists the FBI failed to answer the letter, whereas the FBI says it responded but never received additional information about the suspect.
Three people were killed and over 250 wounded after two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 last year. The Tsarnaev brothers were quickly identified as suspects in the blasts, following the release of surveillance camera footage by the FBI.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a gunfight with police in the days following the bomb attack. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, tried to flee the city, but was wounded and later arrested and is now awaiting trial in federal court, scheduled to begin in November.
