The editor-in-chief of Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta yesterday accused the country’s chief investigator of threatening a deputy editor’s life, forcing the deputy editor to flee the country.
The Guardian reported that Sergei Sokolov, who oversaw investigative reporting at the Moscow-based Novaya Gazeta, fled the country following the alleged threat by Alexander Bastrykin, who heads Russia’s Investigative Committee.
In an open letter published on Wednesday, Novaya Gazeta Editor-in-Chief Dmitry Muratov said Bastrykin’s bodyguards took Sokolov to a forest on the outskirts of Moscow last week and that the chief investigator threatened to arrange Sokolov’s assassination after expressing disproval at the opposition paper’s coverage of a high-profile criminal investigation.
“You brutally threatened the life of my deputy editor,” Muratov said in the open letter addressed to the chief investigator, according to AFP. “You even joked that you would be the one investigating the (murder) case.”
According to Muratov, Bastrykin invited Sokolov on a press trip to the North Caucasus region where the two men were involved in an altercation. Bastrykin reportedly disagreed with an article Sokolov had written criticising the Investigative Committee’s handling of the killing of 12 people in 2010.
After Bastrykin and Sokolov returned to Moscow, the chief investigator’s security guards reportedly drove Sokolov to the forest. There, Bastrykin allegedly made the threat against Sokolov’s life, leading the journalist to leave the country.
IPI Deputy Director Anthony Mills said: “We are very worried about Mr. Sokolov’s well-being. We have been observing an intensifying, systematic pattern of intimidation and harassment of journalists in Russia, especially those appearing critical of the authorities. The latest incidents, in the context of Russia’s long record of attacks on journalists, are deeply alarming and further highlight the country’s grave press freedom record.”
Five journalists were arrested and later released Wednesday afternoon as they picketed the Moscow headquarters of the Investigative Committee following word of the alleged threat.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly made no comment so far on Muratov’s allegations, but Bastrykin today told government-funded broadcaster RT that the story was “completely made up”, although he did not deny having quarrelled with Sokolov before they returned to Moscow.
Novaya Gazeta, a prominent Moscow newspaper, is known for its critical stance on the Kremlin and the law enforcement services. Three of the papers’ reporters have been killed in the last decade, including IPI World Press Freedom Hero Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006. Her murder is widely believed to be linked to her critical reporting. The case drew worldwide attention, but no one has been convicted for her killing.
A Moscow court earlier this month ordered former police officer Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a suspect in the case, transferred from prison to house arrest for reported health reasons, a move that experts and foreign journalists reportedly viewed with scepticism.
Russia has an alarming record of press freedom violations and transgressions against journalists. According to IPI’s Death Watch, 58 journalists have lost their lives since IPI began keeping records of journalists’ deaths in 1997, most in murders that remain unsolved. No journalists have been killed in 2012, but late last month an unknown assailant lured Radio Mayak journalist Sergei Aslanyan [6] from his Moscow apartment and stabbed him 20 times.
