Russia to Set up Federal Investigations Service

Russia is going to set up a Federal Investigations Service, or FIS, as part of it effort to reform its investigating authorities, Major-General of Justice Vitaly Mozyakov, the head of the Russian interior ministry's Investigative Committee, said in a live interview with the Nashe Vremya na Militseiskoi Volne radio station on Thursday.

"There is a bill envisaging that such a service will be set up on the basis of the interior ministry in addition to the police, the national guards, and the municipal police," said Mozyakov. He stressed however that it was "nothing but a bill yet" and that the FIS could be set up in 2005-2006 at the earliest.

Some people tend to draw wrong analogies between the FIS and the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigations, said the general. "The FBI has the right to investigate criminal cases as well as to carry out operative and search measures of the kind handled by our Criminal Investigation Department, the Department for Combating Economic Crimes, etc. The FIS, on its part, will be conducting investigations only and only those within its powers," he explained.