A model from Belarus who was arrested during a “sex training seminar” in Thailand and then claimed to have evidence of Russian interference in US President Donald Trump’s election campaign was deported yesterday.
Anastasia Vashukevich, two other Belarussians and five Russians were being sent to their home countries two days after they pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy and soliciting, Thai authorities said.
The 27-year-old drew the world’s attention in February last year, when she said that she had hours of audio recordings that could shed light on links between Russian officials and Trump’s election in 2016.
She offered to release the recordings in exchange for asylum in the US, but never produced evidence to substantiate her claim and later said that she had no plans to release anything.
Thai Immigration Bureau Commissioner Surachate Hakparn yesterday told reporters that all eight deportees were willing to return to their home countries.
The deportations were being coordinated with Belarus and Russia, he said.
Vashukevich made no comment at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Last year, she had said that she feared that she would be sent to Russia.
Self-proclaimed “sex guru” Alexander Kirillov, 38, a fellow Belarussian who was among the group of deportees, told reporters that the group had been seeking deportation since March last year.
“If you have been to a Thai prison, you are not afraid of anything,” he said.
They were arrested at the beach resort of Pattaya during a seminar on seduction techniques.
Vashukevich, who is also known as Nastya Rybka, said that she had recordings of conversations on interference in the US presidential election through an association with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
However, Deripaska’s representatives have accused her of fabrication and said that she was never his mistress.
Deripaska is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and is a one-time associate of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
US intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow sought to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election to boost Trump’s chances of winning.
Russia has denied meddling and Trump has said no collusion took place.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
RSS