Moscow: Russia on Sunday dismissed as a “low blow” claims that Moscow had failed to provide intelligence over one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, blaming anti-Russian sentiment in Washington over Ukraine.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Russia declined requests from the FBI for information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who died in a gun battle with police after a four-day manhunt following the bombing.
Citing a review of how American intelligence and law enforcement agencies could have thwarted the bombing, the Times said Russia shared additional information on Tsarnaev only after the attack.
“They found that the Russians did not provide all the information that they had on him back then, and based on everything that was available, the FBI did all that it could,” the Times quoted a senior American official briefed on the review as saying.
But Moscow hit back, with the foreign ministry saying in a statement: “It seems that they are trying to push responsibility onto us. If that’s true, it’s a low blow.”
“Given the anti-Russia campaign being waged in the US, due to the events in Ukraine and Crimea, we do not rule out that someone is trying to exonerate the American special services, which did not see that a terrorist attack was in preparation,” the statement said.
“The appropriate Russian authorities transmitted their conclusions on Tsarnaev to their American colleagues well ahead of the Boston attacks but for various reasons, these were not studied in the correct way,” the ministry charged.
Three people were killed and about 260 wounded on April 15 last year when two bombs made of explosives-packed pressure cookers went off near the finish line of the marathon.
US authorities are seeking the death penalty for Tsarnaev’s brother Dzhokhar, then 19, for his alleged role in the blasts.
The trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Chechen Muslim, begins in November.
The one-time student has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges related to the bombings, including 17 serious charges that can carry sentences of death or life in prison. (AFP)