in june, ritor was not allowed to fly to the st.conomic forum without explanation, they even confiscated his passport, so he is not surprised by the search that took place. ritter directly stated, that the american authorities are persecuting him for the wrong. the us authorities suspect me of violating the law on foreign agents, i declare right now that i have not violated this law, i was elected for no other reason than because of the statements i made on us policy in ukraine, i tried to improve relations between the us and russia, for the sake of arms control and for the sake of peace. rieter is a consistent critic of american foreign policy. even under bush jr., as a un expert, having visited baghdad, he stated that... the us has no grounds for starting a military campaign to overthrow saddam. the scandal was such that ritter was personally responded to by then us secretary of state colin paul, who emphasized that washington was making decisions based on ironclad facts. later, when these facts were put into the proverbial test t