Russian Journalist Safronov Killed

Yet another Russian journalist has offended the authorities to the point of being killed. Ivan Safronov was a former colonel in the Russian Space Troops, the branch of the Russian military responsible for military space operations. He joined Kommersant newspaper in 1997. He found himself in trouble with the FSB, successor to the KGB and the Cheka, for divulging state secrets, but managed to source everything with public records. He also reported on failed rocket tests. He obviously annoyed the wrong people one time too many.

Kommersant reported in its English language version, “The Taganka prosecutor's office in Moscow has initiated a criminal investigation on the forcible suicide of Kommersant journalist Ivan Safronov, who died under unknown circumstances last Friday when he fell from a window in the stairway of the Khrushchev-era five-story building in which he lived. The police and prosecutor initially characterized his death as suicide. Safronov, who turned 51 last month, wrote about the army and space. It is known that he was preparing a publication on Russian arms deliveries to the Middle East that could have caused a major scandal.”

“Forcible suicide” is a delightfully Orwellian term. Kommersant journalist Konstantin Lantratov, a friend of Colonel Safronov’s for 15 years, confirmed that the dead man fell from the fifth floor of his own apartment building (the colonel lived on the third floor), but he fell upside down – how he knows this is unclear. Mr. Lantratov maintains, and rightly so, that people who autodefenestrate (toss themselves out windows) don’t do it head first. “This could mean he was knocked unconscious and then pushed out the window,” he said. A forcible suicide.

According to the International Herald Tribune, “ . . . Safronov told his editors he would write a report about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and Syria via Belarus, but they said he had not yet submitted the article. Kommersant said Safronov recently told colleagues he had been warned he would face a criminal investigation on charges of revealing state secrets if he reported allegations that Russia had struck a deal to supply highly advanced Iskander missiles to Syria. If confirmed, such a contract would upset the balance of forces in the Mideast and likely anger Israel and the United States. ‘Ivan Safronov said he was not going to write about it for a while because he was warned that it would create a huge international scandal and the FSB (Federal Security Service) would launch a criminal case on charges of breaching state secrets,’ Kommersant said.”

Russia is the third most dangerous country for journalists, according to The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, after Iraq and Afghanistan. Some 44 journalists there have died violently since 1992, and 13 have been whacked mafia-style since Vladimir Putin took office in 2000. One can only hope that the prosecutors at the Taganka office have better luck arresting and convicting Colonel Safronov’s killer(s) than others have had bring to justice those who killed the others.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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