Extrait de l'interview de Dmitry Medvedev accordée au Financial Times le 24 mars 2008

FT: Do you really believe, though, that the British Council is spying?

DM: I am not the head of the security services but at the same time the information that from time to time appears in the press and the reports that I get as one of the leaders of the country show that there is a problem with this. But this is not very surprising because these types of organisations are traditionally used for the collection of information.

FT: And this week there was a raid on TNK-BP. Do you believe some people saying this is an attempt to sabotage an effort on both sides, in Moscow and the UK, to improve relations?

DM: We need to sort out what happened. In any case the information I received shows that in this case we are talking about the commercial collection of information in the interests of other companies. And such a type of commercial espionage is a crime according to the law of any country. But it is clear the case is being investigated at the preliminary stage and as far as I know documents have been seized and the people that were charged are not in custody. But proceeding from what we have been speaking about for the past two hours, I would like the final decision to be taken by a court and not by the judgment of analysts or politicians.

As far as I understand this is not about a state crime but about a crime in the economic sphere. Unfortunately this is a common thing, but we need to wait for the result. Our companies also try to observe each other and try to get some kinds of materials.

L'interview complète http://www.ft.com/cms/s/50ff806e-f9b6-11dc-9b7c-000077b07658.html

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