Novaya Gazeta correspondent detained on suspicion of street robbery

24-year-old Novaya Gazeta journalist Andrei Sukhotin, who is known for his investigations of scandals with football functionaries and scams surrounding the property of the Ministry of Defense, was detained on suspicion of robbery, Izvestia reports.

Muscovite Andrei Vishnyakov claims that on December 26 he was beaten and robbed in the center of Moscow by a group of young people, which included Sukhotin.

On New Year's Eve, Andrei Sukhotin, in the company of friends, was returning from a corporate party, the publication writes. In Potapovsky Lane, young people met Andrei Vishnyakov. There was a quarrel between them, as a result of which, according to Vishnyakov, three guys attacked him and severely beat him, after which they took his wallet and ran away. After this, the victim went to the emergency room to record the beatings, and then wrote a statement to the police.

Investigators seized CCTV footage and identified one of the attackers, Andrei Sukhotin. The journalist was taken to the Basmanny Department of Internal Affairs, where Vishnyakov identified him as the one who attacked him.

“After this, Sukhotin was detained under Article 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. For robbery committed by a group of people, he faces up to seven years in prison. Two of his accomplices are currently wanted,” a law enforcement source told Izvestia.

Novaya Gazeta called the charge against Sukhotin “monstrously far-fetched.” “We are absolutely confident of his innocence. We believe that there is no reason at all to even suspect him of involvement in this domestic story, in a robbery with some kind of telephone. This is monstrously far-fetched, and we have all the evidence of his complete innocence,” Press secretary of the publication Nadezhda Prusenkova told Gazeta.Ru .

According to her, the editorial office has all the materials, including video camera testimony and recordings of the journalist’s arrest itself.

Prusenkova noted that the incident was not related to Sukhotin’s working materials, but the provocation against him may be related to this.