A Russian journalist renowned for investigations into corruption has been charged with drug dealing – and almost immediately transferred to hospital with serious injuries believed to have been incurred during police custody.
State investigators confirmed on Saturday that Ivan Golunov was held responsible for 5.37 grams of cocaine allegedly found in his Moscow apartment – just enough to be considered under a serious drugs charge and up to 20 years’ imprisonment.
Mr Golunov denies the charges.
Friends and colleagues have described the development as an outrageous set-up.
In a joint statement, Mr Golunov’s editor and publisher at Meduza, a liberal online publication, said they had no doubt that their journalist was innocent.
“We know Ivan received threats in the last months,” they wrote. “We know in connection to which text, and we can guess from who. We will find out who is behind this and we will make the information public.”
Friends told The Independent that they had never seen Mr Golunov taking drugs.
“His only drug is curiosity,” wrote former colleague Leonid Bershidsky on Twitter. “But in Russia that’s against the law.”
Mr Golunov is one of Russia’s most conscientious investigators, and operates in some of the country’s darkest nooks.
His recent stories have uncovered corruption and malpractice in local government and in the loan shark business. But The Independent understands that his muckraking around Russian funeral services – a particularly murky sphere controlled by mafia groups with strong links to the state – may have been the reason he was targeted.
Speaking on Saturday, Mr Golunov’s lawyer Dmitry Dzulai said police committed many procedural violations.
His client was initially denied a lawyer. Then, detectives refused to take swabs to test if the journalist had even touched the drugs. They also refused to take fingerprints of the bags themselves. The searching of his flat appears to have been done selectively and without witnesses present.
Soon after Mr Golunov’s arrest, police officials published four photographs purporting to show a drugs laboratory in what they said was the journalist’s apartment. Later, a spokesman rolled back those comments, and said only one of the photos was, in fact, taken there. At the same time, the spokesman insisted Mr Golunov had some unstated connection to the drugs laboratory depicted in the other pictures.
There are strong suspicions that Mr Golunov has been beaten while in police custody – possibly with the aim of obtaining a confession.
Mr Golunov’s lawyer Dmitry Dzulai said that it was obvious his client was unwell when he saw him: “He had a strong reaction to light, and I’m not a doctor but it certainly looked like concussion... I’ve no idea what happened behind those closed doors.”
On Saturday afternoon, following two ambulance visits, Mr Golunov was transferred to hospital. An official police statement confirmed he had been preliminarily diagnosed with concussion and fractured ribs.
Mr Golunov’s detention has provoked a largely unexpected but spirited reaction across Russia, with hundreds turning out in “one-man pickets”. These are the one legal form of protest in Russia today. Other rallies are permitted only with prior permission.
It is rare for law enforcement to reverse on controversial arrests, but a battle seems to be developing behind the scenes about what to do next.
According to Proyekt, an investigative publication with good sources in government, police authorities are petitioning the Kremlin for permission to push the case to a custodial conclusion. It is far from clear that the Kremlin will agree.
Anton Kobyakov, an adviser to Vladimir Putin, told state news agency TASS that the Kremlin had decided to take the case under special control.
Mr Kobyakov was unusually critical of the police decision to present photographic evidence as if it was taken in Mr Goldunov’s apartment.
“Deception and manipulation of facts are covered by articles in the criminal code,” he said. “Those responsible will be made to answer.”
