Russia charges police with planting drugs
Five former police officers in Moscow have been charged with planting drugs on an investigative journalist in a rare example of a Kremlin climbdown.
Ivan Golunov, 37, a reporter with the Meduza news website, was arrested in June after police said they found cocaine and mephedrone, a synthetic stimulant popular with clubbers, in his backpack.
They also said they had discovered a drug lab at his flat in Moscow.
He faced up to 20 years in prison. Golunov’s editors said his arrest was probably linked to an investigation which revealed that Moscow’s lucrative funeral service business was controlled by a criminal gang that included members of the FSB state security service.
He was released after days of public protests outside the interior ministry headquarters in Moscow and an unprecedented show of solidarity by Russian journalists, including state television presenters.
Three influential newspapers ran identical headlines that read ‘‘I/We are Ivan Golunov’’.
President Vladimir Putin was reported to have taken the decision to drop the prosecution over fears that the case could provoke wider demonstrations.
Investigators said that the drugs planted on Golunov were illegally obtained, stored and transported by the officers. They were named as Denis Konovalov, Akbar Sergaliev, Roman Feofanov, Maxim Umetbayev, and Igor Lyakhovets. All five men were dismissed from the police force after Golunov’s release.
Golunov welcomed the development yesterday and said he hoped that the case would go to court. ‘‘The initiation of the criminal case that I have been seeking for so long with the support of the media and society has happened and this is very good,’’ he said.
The officers insisted on their innocence during questioning, Interfax reported. Lyakhovets said in court yesterday that the case was ‘‘political.’’
He also complained that investigators had pressured him and his fellow suspects to confess.
Last year Putin, 67, fired two senior police officials in an attempt to defuse public anger over the case.