The Guardian declines to visit pilot Yaroshenko in U.S. prison - newspaper
MOSCOW. Aug 8 (Interfax) - Correspondents of the British newspaper The Guardian have no intention to visit convicted Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko in the Fort Dix prison for an independent inquiry, the newspaper Izvestia said on Tuesday.
"Having read the newspaper's article about himself, the Russian citizen sent a letter to the edition to invite journalists to visit him in the United States so that they could develop a full idea about every circumstance and detail of his abduction by U.S. security services in Liberia. The Guardian told Izvestia they would not communicate either with incarcerated Konstantin Yaroshenko or his family in Rostov-on-Don," the report said.
In the opinion of Yaroshenko, "the article in The Guardian was obviously made to order," Izvestia said.
"I was taken aback when I learned about the edition's reaction. I actually communicated with that journalist. I wrote a letter to him as soon as I read the article. [...] He stopped answering me after I invited him to visit. Lots of U.S. media outlets wrote about me, but it was the first publication of the sort in Europe. [...] They are afraid I may tell what was happening in Guinea and Kyiv. Very serious things happened there. They know what I mean. I am a small link in the huge chain of the discrediting of Russia," the pilot said.
Liberian security services arrested Yaroshenko in the capital of Liberia on May 28, 2010, on the counts of preparations to transport a large batch of cocaine. The pilot was deported to the United States.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced Yaroshenko on September 7, 2011, to 20 years in custody on the counts of conspiracy to smuggle a large batch of drugs, some of which were intended for distribution in the United States.