Back from the dead: Journo fakes murder Ukraine
By yesterday afternoon, most of Arkady Babchenko’s friends and colleagues had gone through the familiar cycle of grief and confusion that follows the killing of a Russian dissident journalist.
Obituaries had been written, travel arrangements were made for the funeral and Western politicians including Boris Johnson had announced they were ‘‘appalled’’.
Ukraine blamed Russia, and Russia blamed Ukraine as both launched rival investigations to prove it.
But then came a twist that no-one could predict: Vasily Gritsak, the head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), called a press conference and announced the whole thing had been a setup. For a moment, there was an uncomprehending silence.
Then a door opened and in shuffled a familiar shaven-headed man – Babchenko.
Looking somewhat sheepish, he said: ‘‘I have buried many friends and colleagues and I know the sickening feeling. I am sorry you had to experience it. But there was no other way.
‘‘Special apologies to my wife. Olech- ka, I am sorry but there were no options here. The operation took two months to prepare. I was told a month ago. As a result, one person has been captured, he is being held.’’
Gritsak said the faked death had allowed Ukrainian agents to thwart a genuine murder plot. Staging it, he implied, was necessary to gain evidence of communication between the hitman and his handlers.
The Interior Ministry went so far as to justify the stunt by saying Sherlock Holmes had used the same tactic.
Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said the alleged plot involved a Ukrainian citizen who had been recruited by Russian handlers to carry out the hit.
The SBU last night released video footage of what they said was a payment being made to the hitman. Kiev hailed the operation a victory but Moscow condemned the stunt.
Ukrainian police said the veteran war correspondent had been killed by a gunman lurking in the stairwell outside his Kiev flat late on Wednesday.
Police said his wife found his body on the threshold of the flat with several gunshot wounds in his back. He was reported to have died in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
All of this seemed entirely plausible to those who knew him, and the operation was accompanied by an attempt to convince journalists the murder was real, with an apparently staged photograph of Babchenko lying in a pool of blood sent to journalists in Kiev and circulated on social media.
Babchenko was an implacable public critic of the Kremlin and the death appeared to fit with a pattern of murders in Kiev.
The unsolved deaths included that of Pavel Sheremet, a Belarusian-born liberal journalist who was blown up in his car in 2016 and Kremlin critics Anna Politkovskaya and Boris Nemtsov, who were killed in 2006 and 2015.
Yesterday, journalists and media freedom groups said it undermined faith in reporting and played into the hands of governments who dismissed unwelcome coverage as fake news. It could also put journalists in danger.
‘‘It is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive,’’ said Christophe Deloire, of Reporters Without Borders.
‘‘All it takes is one case like this to cast doubt on all other political assassinations.’’ - Telegraph Group