Alexei Sidorov, editor-in-chief of the Togliattinskoye Obozreniye newspaper, was killed on October 9 at his entrance. Sidorov was known for publishing high-profile criminal investigations, at first neither the prosecutor's office nor the police doubted the custom version ...

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Aleksey Sidorov, editor-in-chief of the Togliattinskoye Obozreniye newspaper, was killed on October 9 at his entrance. Sidorov was known for publishing high-profile criminal investigations; at first, neither the prosecutor's office nor the police doubted the contract version of the murder.

But on October 27, the Togliatti prosecutor's office charged 29-year-old electric welder Yevgeny Maininger with murder, citing a domestic quarrel as the cause of the murder. According to investigators, the journalist ran into Meininger, who lived in a neighboring house, at the entrance. A drunken welder tried to take away a bottle of vodka from him, a fight broke out, the journalist received 15 hits with a sharpener.

The journalists of Togliatti Review are sure that their editor-in-chief could not return from work with a bottle of vodka and certainly would not argue with a drunken neighbor over it. Not to mention the fact that hardly a previously unconvictioned and well-earning welder could go on a murder for the sake of a bottle. In addition, relatives of the suspect stated that Meininger left the house half an hour after the murder. According to investigators, after the murder, the suspect regained his composure, he threw the sharpener into the water of the local hydroelectric power station and returned to the scene of the crime, speaking to the police as a witness. According to journalists, for this he would have to walk 30 km.

According to the editors of the Togliatti Review, Mininger was initially detained for insulting a police officer. Apparently, the police were offended so much that Maininger spent three days in the Komsomolsk department of the police department. And on the fourth, he confessed to the murder of Alexei Sidorov.

As Igor Izotov, the new editor-in-chief of Togliatti Review, told us, the murder took place in front of witnesses. Whether they were interrogated, journalists do not know. Even Alexei Sidorov's father was refused to provide the materials of the investigation.

In order not to allow the investigation to be terminated and to get acquainted with the case materials, at the request of the editors, the Glasnost Defense Foundation, the Russian PEN Center and the Civil Liberties Foundation send a Moscow lawyer, Karen Nersisyan, to Togliatti. According to him, on the spot he will have to decide whether to protect the suspect or represent the interests of the relatives of the victim.

Although the investigation already has a confession from Meininger, the investigation into the case will last at least three months. The murderer of the previous editor-in-chief of Togliatti Review, Vladimir Ivanov, who died a year and a half ago, was never found. Over the past eight years, six journalists have been killed in Tolyatti.