Russia to Seek International Arrest Warrants for Cravers UPDATED

As we announced on Friday,Nanette and Michael Craver received time served in the death of Nathaniel Craver and will seek to regain custody of his twin sister.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the verdict “outrageously irresponsible” on Friday.

RIA Novosti reports that ““The court’s verdict shocks with its outrageous irresponsibility. It is absolutely inadequate to the crime and its grave consequences,” the ministry said in a statement.

Russian Embassy in Washington and the Consulate General in New York which tracked closely the investigation into the boy’s killing, slammed the “unhurried” local police that had arrested the Cravers six months after Vanya’s death, despite the medical tests that had shown the child was regularly beaten and suffered from malnutrition.

The Ministry said the U.S. judicial system is biased towards Russian citizens who usually receive tough verdicts only for “intentions” to commit a crime.

“It does not add confidence to our efforts to rely on the U.S. justice while considering criminal cases and other human rights issues,” the ministry said. “The facts of this kind do not contribute to the bilateral dialogue on human rights issues.”

Earlier on Saturday, Russian Prosecutor’s General Office said it is carrying its own investigation into the boy’s death.”

Associated Press reports “Russia’s federal Investigative Committee said in a statement it will seek an international arrest warrant for the Cravers and prove that the murder was brutal and premeditated

“”That’s the opinion the prosecutors in the U.S. court stick to, and the Investigative Committee fully shares it,” according to the statement from the country’s top investigative body.

Prosecutors had argued that the boy died from repeated blows to the head, but offered no theory at trial about which parent delivered them.”

Russian prosecutors seek tougher punishment for US couple convicted of adopted son’s death
[Daily Press 11/19/11 by Associated Press]

Russia Wants to Punish Couple
[The Moscow Times 11/21/11 by Associated Press]

Verdict to U.S. couple killed Russian adoptive son ‘irresponsible’ – Foreign Ministry
[Ria Novosti 11/19/11]

Update: “Russia’s federal Investigative Committee issued a statement that officials there will seek an international arrest warrant for the Cravers and prove Nathaniel’s death was brutal and premeditated, according to The Associated Press.

No authority: But an attorney with the Cravers’ defense team said the couple is safe from Russian prosecution, as long as they don’t travel to that country.

“I don’t think (Russia) can have any jurisdiction over them,” said Suzanne Smith, who represented Michael Craver. “I don’t think any court in the United States would honor (such) an extradition warrant.”

U.S. citizens are protected from double jeopardy laws, and the Cravers were already legally tried here, Smith said. Also, the Russians don’t have jurisdiction in the case, despite the fact they appear to be arguing Nathaniel was a Russian citizen, she said.

“(Russian officials) are just saying, ‘We’re not happy with the result. We want to do it our way,'” Smith said. “Well, you don’t get to do that. I don’t know anyone who would recognize Russians’ authority in this particular case. They don’t really have any.”

Ongoing issues: Smith said it appears Russian officials are ignoring ongoing problems in that country with children in orphanages.

“I think all of our experts agree that adopted children from Russia have a high rate of fetal alcohol syndrome and attention disorders,” she said. “There’s some level of neglect and abandonment going on over there … and they don’t want to address it.” [While we agree that there is poor care in the orphanages, that has NOTHING to do with Nathaniel’s POOR CARE IN THE US! And it has EVERYTHING to do with the PLACING AGENCY, HOMESTUDY AGENCY and ADOPTIVE PARENTS!!!!]

District Attorney Tom Kearney said while he’s no expert on international law he, too, suspects any attempt to extradite the Cravers to Russia would run into double jeopardy issues.

“The question of whether one was properly tried … is in the eyes of the beholder,” he said. “We certainly believe they were. We devoted substantial resources into the prosecution, and the jury made the call. … And the judge seemed to think it was the right call.”

Russians unlikely to succeed in bid for new Craver trial, attorneys say
[The York Dispatch 11/21/11 by Elizabeth Evans]

Update 2: Russia continues with this effort.”Russia’s top investigator turned to government human rights watchdogs for help Tuesday in pressing further charges against an American couple convicted in the United States in the death of a boy adopted from Chelyabinsk.

Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin sent letters to the head of the presidential human rights council and the federal ombudsman after a Moscow court rejected a petition to arrest Michael and Nanette Craver in absentia.

Basmanny Court Judge Artur Karpov said Monday that there were no grounds for the couple’s further criminal prosecution, since they had already been tried and convicted of the 7-year-old boy’s death in the United States, Interfax reported.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has disputed the legality of issuing an international warrant, ruling that investigators failed to provide evidence that the Cravers attempted to hide from Russian justice.

But state investigators have shown no signs of giving up.

“The failure of a Russian court to approve the petition … in no way represents an obstacle to the further prosecution [of the Cravers] in Russia,” said committee spokesman Vladimir Markin.”

Adoption Death Case Carries On
[The Moscow Times 11/29/11]

Update 3: “The United States “inexcusably” failed to inform Moscow about the death of a Russian-born toddler adopted by an American couple, a Kremlin official said on Friday, highlighting tensions over an adoption accord the two countries signed in July.

Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov criticised U.S. authorities for not informing Russia that an American man had been acquitted of the murder of his Russian-born son.

In November a jury in U.S. state Iowa decided that Brian Dykstra was not guilty of second-degree murder following the death of his 21-month year old son Isaac in 2005, U.S. news reports said.

“The American authorities have only now informed us (of this case). For almost six years they were silent and said nothing. It is inexcusable,” Astakhov told Reuters in an interview.

A U.S. official who did not wish to be named told Reuters on Friday they were preparing a response to Astakhov’s remarks.

The adoption of tens of thousands of Russian children by foreigners since the collapse of the Soviet Union 20 years ago has been a touchy subject since Russia opened up to would-be Western parents.

Cases of abuse amongst Russian-born children in the United States have outraged both politicians and the public alike in Russia.

“Nineteen of our children have died,” Astakhov said referring to all deaths of Russian-born children in the U.S. since 1991. “This situation is a permanent fiasco.”

In August, Astakhov criticised the suspended sentence handed to an Alaskan mother seen on a U.S. television program after she punished her seven-year old son by making him swallow spicy sauce and stand in a cold shower.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has spoken out against a Tennessee woman who abandoned her adopted son and put him on a plane alone back to Russia last year.

Around 371,700 children were living in Russian state institutions in 2009, according to the Moscow-based organization Right of the Child. The Russian government is now seeking to boost domestic adoption to care for orphans or abandoned children as an alternative to foreign adoption.

Astakhov, also a lawyer and TV personality, is seeking to strip a U.S. couple from Pennsylvania, the Cravers, of their parental rights after they were convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of their seven-year old son adopted from Russia.

He now wants to ensure the couple’s adopted daughter, Dasha Skorobogatova and also from Russia, has no further contact with the couple, according to an official statement on the commissioner’s website.

In July, Lavrov signed an agreement with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to tighten adoption rules, meaning only agencies authorized by the Russian government will be able to operate in the country, while monitoring of families after adoption will be stepped up.

The Russian Duma, the lower house of parliament, must now ratify the agreement before it comes into force.

“American officials must inform us of every case when a Russian citizen dies,” Astakhov said.”

Moscow knocks U.S. for “silence” on dead Russian child

[Reuters 12/2/11 by Jennifer Rankin]

REFORM Puzzle Piece