Search Linked to Interview
By Oksana Yablokova Staff Writer Iraqi police searched the RIA-Novosti bureau in Baghdad on Wednesday, and the state-controlled news agency linked the search to a recent interview with the leader of an Iraqi rebel group.
A group of two police officers and four military officers arrived at the bureau Wednesday morning with a search warrant, RIA-Novosti reported.
The officers studied the rental agreement for the office, identification documents of the bureau's local employees and computer software. Several floppy discs, CDs and audiotapes were seized, RIA-Novosti spokesman Gennady Melnik said in a telephone interview.
At the time of the search, bureau chief Pavel Davydov was away in Beirut, Melnik said.
No reason for the search was given, but RIA officials said they believed the search was in response to an interview Davydov did with Abdulla al-Jenabi, the leader of Jaish al-Mujahideen, a little-known Iraqi rebel group.
In the interview, published Aug. 1, al-Jenabi said "the political process in Iraq is impossible as long as the U.S. occupation forces remain in the country" and warned of "new large-scale actions of resistance."
The group's only known action of note was the abduction of two Indonesian journalists in February. They were later released.
RIA-Novosti's decision to publish the interview directly followed ABC television's broadcast on July 28 of an interview with Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev.
In reaction to the interview, the Foreign Ministry said it would not renew the accreditation of ABC's Moscow correspondent.
Russian officials have called the ABC broadcast a violation of UN Security Council resolutions aimed at curbing the spread of terrorism. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin declined to comment Wednesday on the search at RIA-Novosti.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2005/08/11/013.html
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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