Russian officials open criminal case to investigate suicide in which victim blamed police officers

The Investigative Committee of Russia’s Khabarovsk region has opened a criminal case to investigate whether a local man named Viktor Marinchenko was driven to suicide. Just before his death, Marinchenko recorded a video in which he said he decided to kill himself after police officers threatened to fabricate criminal charges against him.

Marinchenko’s son told the outlet DVhab.ru that his father was a witness in a criminal case against one of his friends. Police officers allegedly threatened to charge Marinchenko as an accomplice if he did not give testimony against his friend.

In his video, Marinchenko says explicitly that “the cops drove [him]” to commit suicide, and he names two individuals specifically: Ivan Nikitin and Alexey Mrazenko. The local police force has begun an internal investigation of its employees’ actions that will take place simultaneously with the criminal proceedings in the case. The Investigative Committee did not indicate whether it had already named any suspects.