Russia drops charges against reporter after public outcry

THE criminal case against Ivan Golunov, a Russian journalist who said police planted drugs on him and beat him, was dismissed yesterday after an international outcry.

The rare reversal of a criminal prosecution suggests the Kremlin is becoming nervous about social dissent.

After fingerprint and DNA analysis, “the decision has been made to stop the criminal case against citizen Golunov and remove the charges against him because of the lack of proof of his involvement in the crime committed”, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the interior minister, said in a video statement.

He added the reporter for the Latvia-based Russian news site Meduza was due to be released from house arrest yesterday.

Mr Kolokoltsev said he would ask Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, for permission to sack the head of the Moscow police’s anti-narcotics department and the police chief of the western Moscow district. The officers who arrested him have been suspended while the investigative committee examines their actions.

Mr Golunov, who is known for his investigations of high-level corruption in the Moscow city government, was arrested on Thursday and charged with selling cocaine and the designer drug mephedrone. He was later taken to the hospital after complaining police had punched him and stood on his chest.

Meduza said Golunov had recently filed another expose and had regularly been receiving threats. Muscovites have been picketing the police headquarters, and three Russian newspapers ran front pages on Monday declaring that “I/we are Ivan Golunov”.