Working with the press

The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, published on the pages of his publication an open letter to the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, in which he accuses him of threatening his deputy, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, the head of the investigation department, Sergei Sokolov. The story is this: Bastrykin, offended by an article about an inadequately lenient sentence for Sergei Tsepovyaz, accused of involvement in a murder in the village of Kushchevskaya and harboring a murderer, invited Sokolov with him to Nalchik, demanding an apology.

As Muratov writes, Sokolov apologized during a meeting in Nalchik, “however, he asked a number of questions regarding the essence of the investigation.” Bastrykin did not accept the apology and rudely demanded that Sokolov leave the hall. (Below, Muratov mentions that an apology was made to Bastrykin in the newspaper)

However, the matter did not stop there. Muratov reminds Bastrykin, and at the same time informs everyone (since “all leading, including government, media in Russia and abroad” reported about the scandal in Nalchik, but not about what happened later), that after the plane Bastrykin with Sokolov on board landed in Moscow, the security of the head of the Investigative Committee put the journalist in a car and took him “without explanation to a forest near Moscow,” where Bastrykin was left alone with Sokolov.

“We don’t want to be petty, Alexander Ivanovich, we don’t want to participate in the clan war of the security forces, and therefore we don’t quote what you expressed to Sokolov in an extremely expressive state about the newspaper, editorial policy, how you characterized our deceased columnist Politkovskaya,” writes Muratov.

The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta claims that during this wonderful conversation, Bastrykin “in the heat of the moment” threatened Sokolov’s life. Moreover, he allowed himself a terrible joke, adding that he himself would handle the case of the journalist’s murder.

In connection with the incident, Muratov demands from Bastrykin “safety guarantees for Sergei Sokolov and the editorial staff,” but hopes that both the newspaper and the head of the Investigative Committee will be able to “overcome a mutual emotional breakdown (if it was not something big).” And yet, he asks that Bastrykin’s subordinates, who witnessed his conflict with Sokolov in Nalchik, be informed “not to perceive Novaya Gazeta employees working in the Caucasus as people for whom the long-awaited hunting season is open.”

In the finale, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief promises to publish Bastrykin’s response and reminds that “we have other unfinished business. For example, the case of Anna Politkovskaya.”

Sokolov, meanwhile, left Russia for a while.

Moscow journalists gathered for single pickets near the building of the Investigative Committee, but soon they began to be detained. As Ekho Moskvy correspondent Irina Vorobyova writes, her colleagues among those detained are Vladimir Varfolomeev, Alina Grebneva, Olga Bychkova, Natella Boltyanskaya. In addition, the author of the Daily Journal, Alexander Podrabinek, was detained. Meanwhile, the Ekho Moskvy website suffered a DDoS attack, not the first in these days. Journalists continue to stand outside the Investigative Committee building. The detainees were later released.