-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 7, 2007 12:46:23 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Will Russia Arm the "Axis of Evil" Against Israel?
Russian newspaper to probe mysterious death of journalist
March 7, 2007 | 2:53 PM ET
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/03/07/russian-journalist.html
A Russian newspaper said Wednesday it is launching an investigation
into the suspicious death of one of its journalists last week
because it thinks the police are not doing enough.
Andrei Vasilyev, editor of the daily Kommersant, told CBC News in
Moscow that the business newspaper is reviewing the circumstances
surrounding the death of its military affairs writer Ivan Safronov.
Safronov fell five storeys to his death on Friday from an apartment
window that opened onto a stairwell.
"There were no police for four hours, so he just lay there dead,"
Vasilyev said in Russian. "What do you think of that? So we decided
to look at his cellphone records and text messages, the things the
police should be doing."
Safronov was buried on Wednesday. Prosecutors have opened an
inquest into his death. Neighbours described him as a friendly,
jovial, well-balanced man who loved his family, but Russian news
reports have quoted police saying they suspect his death was a
suicide.
According to the newspaper, Safronov had told his editors that he
was going to write a story about plans by Russia to sell weapons to
Iran and Syria, but he had not yet filed the article when he died.
Safronov had apparently told other journalists at the newspaper
that he had been warned that he would face a criminal investigation
for revealing state secrets if he wrote a story alleging that
Russia had worked out a deal to sell Iskander missiles to Syria. He
did not say who gave him the warning.
Potential story had international ramifications
If Russia was going to sell such missiles to Syria, it could change
the geopolitical balance in the Middle East.
The Iskander is a surface-to-surface missile that has a range of
280 kilometres, which means Syria would have the ability to hit
targets in Israel with precision.
Agents of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, which does the work
of the former KGB, had questioned Safronov in the past but he had
never been detained.
According to the Kommersant, Safronov had gone to an international
arms fair last month in the United Arab Emirates to obtain
confirmation that Russia had planned to sell S-300 missiles to Iran
and Su-30 fighter jets to Syria. He reportedly told his editors
that Russian officials had confirmed the plans.
CBC's Nick Spicer in Moscow said the story, when published, would
have been major international news.
"It's not just a scoop of Russian proportions but of international
proportions," he said.
"It's very speculative to say what might have caused someone to
want to kill this investigative reporter but he's not the first and
he was certainly on a very big story which one could assume would
embarrass the Russian government."
According to the International Federation of Journalists, which
represents more 500,000 journalists in more than 100 countries,
there were four deaths of journalists and media workers in Russia
last year, making it one of the world's deadliest countries for
journalists.
Anna Politkovska, a world famous correspondent who covered
atrocities in Chechnya, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment last
October. Her killing has not yet been solved.
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