Yet another critic of Vladimir Putin has died under mysterious circumstances:
MOSCOW – A military correspondent for Russia’s top business daily died after falling from a fifth-story window, and some in the news media speculated Monday that he might have been killed for his critical reporting.
Ivan Safronov, the military affairs writer for Kommersant, died Friday in the fall from a stairwell window in his apartment building in Moscow, according to officials.
Safronov, who had been a colonel in the Russian Space Forces before joining Kommersant in 1997, frequently angered authorities with his critical reporting and was repeatedly questioned by the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor to the KGB, which suspected him of divulging state secrets. No charges were ever filed because Safronov proved his reports were based on open sources, Kommersant said.
With prosecutors investigating the death, Kommersant and some other news media suggested foul play.
In December, Safronov irked officials when he was the first to report the third consecutive launch failure of the new Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, which President Vladimir Putin had hailed as a basis of the nation’s nuclear might. Authorities never acknowledged the failure.
Russia is among the most dangerous countries for journalists and is plagued by attacks on reporters who seek to expose official corruption and abuses. The problem was highlighted by the October killing of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter and a harsh critic of human rights abuses in Chechnya.
Well, what do you expect when the President is a former KGB agent ?
March 6th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
On the other hand, this is *finally* an opportunity to use the word ‘defenestration.’ How often does that happen?