A pair of senators want an international probe into the deaths of three journalists murdered in the Central African Republic, raising a call that casts suspicion on the role of the Russian government in the killings.
“They were reportedly in the country investigating the activities of Wagner, a private Russian mercenary group that has been deployed in Syria and Ukraine and that is reported to be linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a catering magnate close to Vladimir Putin,” Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chris Coons, D-Del., wrote Wednesday.
The Wagner Group is the same mercenary force that reportedly staged an unsuccessful assault on an American-held camp in Syria, sustaining hundreds of casualties in the process. Orkhan Dzhemal, Kirill Radchenko, and Alexander Rastorguyev were ambushed on assignment in late July, although the driver of their car survived.
“According to the preliminary data of law enforcement agencies, the Russian citizens were attacked by unknown people for the purpose of robbery,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said after the attack.
The reporters were working on a project funded by “an exiled opponent of Putin,” Rubio and Coons emphasized. And “the incident follows the mysterious death of another Russian journalist who investigated the organization,” as Axios observed.
Thirty-eight reporters have been killed in “confirmed or likely to be work-related homicides” since Putin took office in 2000, according to Politifact’s compilation of international watchdog tallies.
“Well, first off, all of us have plenty of political rivals,” the Russian leader told Fox News’ Chris Wallace when asked in July about the deaths of his critics. “Has [former President John F.] Kennedy been killed in Russia or in the United States? Or Mr. [Martin Luther] King? And what happens with the clashes between police and civil society of several ethnic groups? That’s something that happens on the U.S. soil. All of us have our own set of domestic problems. But going back to what happened in Russia, yes, we do have crime, and, unfortunately, there are some crimes. And to some extent Russia’s statehood is maturing. And there are some side effects, and we prosecute people responsible for these crimes.”
He has likewise downplayed his relationship with Prigozhin, who has also been accused by U.S. authorities of funding a disinformation campaign related to the 2016 election interference. “He is a restaurant keeper in St. Petersburg,” Putin said in a June interview. “I know many people in St Petersburg and Moscow.”
Rubio and Coons made their suspicions clear, without directly accusing the Russian government of involvement. “We respectfully ask you to engage the relevant U.N. mechanisms to conduct a full and impartial investigation into the circumstances of the murder of Orkhan Dzhemal, Kirill Radchenko, and Alexander Rastorguyev, and to ensure full cooperation by the governments of the Central African Republic and the Russian Federation,” the senators wrote in the letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
