MOSCOW, February 8 - RAPSI. The United States has agreed to cooperate with the Investigative Committee on child abuse cases concerning adopted Russian children, the committee's official spokesman Vladimir Markin told RIA Novosti on Friday.

The agreement is a high-profile issue on the backdrop of the debate surrounding the so-called Dima Yakovlev law, which was introduced in late December 2012.
Markin said the committee delivered a letter from their chairman to a delegation of the US Department of Justice during their meeting on February 6. The document was forwarded to US Attorney General Eric Holder the same day.

"Following the meeting, the United States expressed its readiness to cooperate on child abuse cases committed against adopted Russian children," Markin told journalists. He said committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin urged the US attorney general to cooperate in the investigation of such criminal cases.

The committee is investigating child abuse cases concerning the following adopted Russian children: Sergei Nakonechny (Luke Alexander Evans), Nikita Khoryakov (Zakari Louis Higier), Dima Yakovlev (Harrison Chase Dmitry), Ksenia Antonova (Ksenia Mae Blanford), Yelena, Sergei, Leonid and Kristina Zhivodrov (OBrien Yelena Maibusch, OBrien Sergey Maibusch, OBrien Leonid Maibusch, and OBrien Kristina Maibusch), Daniil Krichun (Daniel Alexander Sweeney), Ilya Kargyntsev (Dykstra Isaac Jonathan), Anna Pochetnaya (Logan Anna Higginbotham), Ivan Skorobogatov (Craver Nathaniel Michael), and Maxim Babayev (Kaleb Maxim Traylor).

The Dima Yakovlev law banning US adoptions came into force in January 2013 and was adopted in response to the US Magnitsky Act. Dima Yakovlev, then 21 months old, died in July 2008 after his adoptive father Michael Harrison left him in a locked car in a parking lot for nine hours. Harrison was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter.