MOSCOW: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin defended the honour of Russia after it was branded a “mafia state” in the WikiLeaks memos and he was accused of being aware of a plot to murder a dissident in London.
As the whistleblowing website’s founder Julian Assange, wanted by Interpol over rape allegations in Sweden, remained out of sight, one of his close associates voiced fears that he could be assassinated.
The United States meanwhile named an anti-terrorism expert to lead a review of security in the wake of the leaks of some 250,000 US diplomatic cables which has embarrassed and angered Washington’s friends and foes alike.
Some of the most eye-catching of the latest revelations centred on Russia with one memo quoting a Spanish prosecutor describing it as a virtual “mafia state” whose political parties operate “hand in hand” with organised crime.
Spanish prosecutor Jose Gonzalez told US officials that “he considers … Russia to be a virtual ‘mafia state’” where “one cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and organised crime groups,” the memo said.
Gonzalez, who has been investigating Russian organised crime in Spain for a decade, also agreed with poisoned dissident Alexander Litvinenko’s thesis that Russian intelligence and security services “owned organised crime.”
The memo, sent in February of this year from the US embassy in Madrid, cited the senior prosecutor as claiming that “certain political parties in Russia operate ‘hand in hand’ with organised crime”.
In a separate leaked cable sent shortly after Litvinenko’s death in London in 2006, US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried questioned whether Putin knew beforehand of the plot to kill the dissident.
In a meeting with a senior French diplomatic adviser, Fried asked “whether rogue security elements could operate… without Putin’s knowledge,” given the leader’s “attention to detail.”
The cables have also quoted Defense Secretary Robert Gates as saying that “Russian democracy has disappeared” and describing President Dmitry Medvedev as “Robin” to Putin’s “Batman.”
But in an interview with CNN, Putin said Gates was “deeply misled” about Russian democracy and warned US officials not to “interfere” in Russia’s internal politics.
Although relations between Moscow and Washington have thawed in recent months, Putin made clear his annoyance.
“Our country is led by the people of the Russian Federation through the legitimately elected government,” he said. “The Russian people have unilaterally made their choice in the direction of democracy in the early ’90s. And we will not be led astray.”
