Wanna' be a Russian journalist? I gotta' deal on a program!

Monday, March 5, 2007. Issue 3608. Page 1.

Journalist Plummets to His Death

By Natalya Krainova
Staff Writer

Itar-Tass
Ivan Safronov in a 2005 photograph

A Kommersant journalist who covered military affairs and had more than once angered government officials fell to his death Friday from a fifth-floor window of the apartment building where he lived.

Prosecutors said suicide was the likeliest explanation for the death of Ivan Safronov, a retired colonel who was a columnist at the daily newspaper for more than 10 years. But Safronov's colleagues and neighbors were skeptical he would take his own life.

Safronov's body was discovered at the entrance to his building on Nizhegorodskaya Ulitsa 9, in southeast Moscow.

Kommersant journalist Konstantin Lantratov, who knew Safronov for 15 years, said in an interview that he could not think of a person "more cheerful" than his former colleague. "Anybody else could do that but him," Lantratov said, referring to talk of a possible suicide.

Safronov fell from the window upside down, Lantratov said, adding that that would not have happened if he had jumped of his own volition. "This could mean he was knocked unconscious and then pushed out the window," he said.

Kommersant editor in chief Andrei Vasilyev told NTV that Safronov was "absolutely not capable" of killing himself. "He was a real colonel," Vasilyev said. "He was so good. Everyone in the office loved him."


Safronov had had run-ins with the Federal Security Service over allegations that he disclosed classified information in his articles. "But they always ended well because Safronov used publicly available information and was able to prove that to FSB officers," Lantratov said.

Lantratov said the FSB questioned Safronov last year over a story about the Samara-based TsSKB-Progress, the manufacturer of the Soyuz-ST rocket. Agents wanted to know where the columnist had unearthed some sensitive data. Once Safronov showed them the Internet site where he got his facts, the FSB dropped its case, Lantratov said.

Lantratov said he last spoke with Safronov on Tuesday.

Safronov lived on the third floor of the five-story, brick building. Police believe he died around 4 p.m., a time of day when few people are home.

Anna Shcherbakova, 25, who lives on the fifth floor, said police visited her apartment at about 7 p.m. She said she returned home at about 3:30 in the afternoon and did not notice anything.

Police also questioned other building residents.

Lyubov Grigoryeva, who lives in the apartment directly above Safronov's, on the fourth floor, said she was in her kitchen reading at 4 p.m. but did not hear anything.

The entrance to Grigoryeva's apartment is a half-flight of stairs below the window from which he fell. She added that a dog living on the fifth floor barks at the slightest noise, but on Friday afternoon, she said, she heard no barking at the time when Safronov is thought to have tumbled to his death.

Raisa Belova, 70, another resident, said she found it strange that Safronov had walked up two floors above his apartment, dressed as if he were about to go outside and apparently carrying a bag of mandarins.

"He was completely dressed, wearing a coat and his cap," Belova said.

Belova said she saw a bag of scattered mandarins near Safronov's dead body when she came back from church.

Prosecutors at the Tagansky district office, which is handling the case, could not be reached for comment Sunday. Spokesman Alexei Kravchuk said in televised comments Saturday that investigators considered suicide the most likely explanation for Safronov's death.

Funeral arrangements were tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, Lantratov said.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/storie...03/05/002.html

Is this the killer of Russian journalist?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../wrussia09.xml

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:56am BST 10/10/2006

Russia's best known investigative journalist was murdered two days before she was due to publish a scathing report on torture by Russian agents in Chechnya, it emerged yesterday, as outrage spread around the world.


Suspect: the tall man in a baseball cap is caught on CCTV
As messages poured in for Anna Politkovskaya, who became famous for her withering criticism of President Vladimir Putin's war in Chechnya, Russian activists struggled to assess the disturbing implications of her killing for the future of their country.
The US State Department said it was "shocked and profoundly saddened" by what appeared to be at least the 13th contract killing of a journalist since Mr Putin took power in 2000. European governments expressed similar sentiments.
But from the Kremlin there was silence. Not even speculation on websites that Politkovskaya's death was a birthday present for Mr Putin, who was 54 on Saturday, the day she was killed, could provoke a government reaction.
Among the thousand or so protesters at vigils in Moscow and St Petersburg, there was no doubt that someone in the Kremlin knew something about the reporter's death.
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The words scrawled across the giant photograph of Politkovskaya in Pushkin Square, Moscow, said it all: "The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech."
A portrait of Mr Putin bore the words: "You are responsible for everything."
Politkovskaya's newspaper, the bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta, which is partly owned by the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, was due to run her latest Chechnyan expose.
Although she had not filed her article, the deputy chief editor, Vitaly Yaroshevsky, said it lifted the lid on torture and kidnapping of civilians by officers loyal to Chechnya's Moscow-backed prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov.


Anna Politkovskaya made many powerful enemies in the FSB
Mr Kadyrov, 30, a protégé of Mr Putin, was one of Politkovskaya's foremost enemies. She was to testify against him in a case over the kidnapping and killing of two civilians. Politkovskaya, 48, was shot twice at close range as she returned to her flat from shopping. The mother of two was found in the lift, with a 9mm Makarov pistol by her side.
CCTV showed a man, in black and with a baseball cap, hurrying from the building.
Politkovskaya made many powerful enemies in the FSB, the spy agency that succeeded the KGB, over scores of trips to Chechnya that exposed Russian brutality in the province and detailed the horrific conditions of ordinary Russian soldiers there.
She received many threats and survived an alleged attempt to poison her tea on a flight in 2004.
Her son regularly checked her car for bombs and she knew death was a possibility. "If it happens, it happens," she told The Daily Telegraph this summer. Last December, she told a conference on press freedom: "People sometimes pay with their lives for saying out loud what they think."


Russian soldiers interrogate a captured chechen fighter
Few are confident a police investigation will uncover the truth. No other journalist's murder in the past six years has been solved.
But the killing of so famous a figure, two weeks after the murder of the reforming deputy head of the central bank, Andrei Kozlov, has convinced some that hard-liners in the Kremlin have begun to act with impunity as 2008 presidential elections draw closer.
"Those who killed her were absolutely convinced that it is now possible in Russia to do such things openly, without even bothering to camouflage it as an accident," said a former dissident, Sergey Grigoryants.
adrian@telegraphmoscow.com

(my emphasis on contract killing)

[Aliantha]

Is there anyone who believes it's not possible the journalist was killed for speaking out of turn?

LOL!

AAAAAAHHhhhhhh.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17424538/

[Crimson Ghost]

That's a hell of a way to beat a deadline....

Americans likely poisoned in Russia hospitalized in U.S.
POSTED: 6:49 p.m. EST, March 8, 2007

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Two American women who were hospitalized in Moscow earlier this week with possible thallium poisoning were in fair but stable condition Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, the hospital said.

Marina Kovalevsky, 42, and her daughter Yanna, 26, were released Wednesday from the Sklifosovsky Clinic in Moscow. (Read full story)

Thallium is a colorless, odorless and tasteless metal which, even ingested in small amounts, can be deadly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cedars-Sinai spokeswoman Cynthia Harding issued a statement Thursday saying the two women arrived at the hospital's emergency department about 6:20 p.m. Wednesday and were admitted after evaluations from emergency doctors.

"It is still too early to determine exactly what may have caused their illness, but at this point there does not appear to be any radiation involved," the Cedars-Sinai statement said.

"They are currently receiving tests to determine the diagnosis; however, they are both being treated for presumptive thallium poisoning."

The two are expected to remain hospitalized for a few more days, the statement said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow told CNN that Russian authorities were investigating how the women may have been poisoned. Typical symptoms of thallium poisoning include dehydration, heart complications and hair loss.

Thallium was originally believed to be what sickened ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. He died in London in November of polonium-210 poisoning, according to British authorities who opened a murder inquiry into the case.

Before he died, Litvinenko accused the Kremlin of orchestrating his poisoning on orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, a charge that Putin has strongly denied.

[Beestie]

Putin's reach apparently extends into the DC suburbs as well. Kinda spooky to think a head of state is whacking DC/MD/VA residents on an as-needed basis.

March 3, 2007

ADELPHI, Md. - Police are investigating a shooting that wounded a prominent intelligence expert.

Fifty-three-year-old Paul Joyal was shot Thursday night outside his house in the 2300 block of Lackawanna Street in Adelphi.

Joyal is known for his expertise on intelligence and terrorism and his contacts in the former Soviet Union.

He has also been a long-time critic of the the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The shooting came four days after he told "Dateline NBC" that he believes the Russian government was involved in the fatal poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Tests confirm thallium poisoning of two U.S. womenPOSTED: 9:48 p.m. EST, March 9, 2007
Story Highlights
• NEW: Toxicology results confirm presence of toxic metal
• NEW: Mother, daughter believe it was accident, lawyer says
• NEW: Women likely to be hospitalized through weekend
• Pair became ill during visit to Russia

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Toxicology tests confirmed Friday that two American women are suffering from thallium poisoning, according to a California hospital.

Marina Kovalevsky, 42, and her daughter, Yanna, 26, were not expected to be released from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles before the weekend.

"Results of their toxicology tests confirm that thallium poisoning occurred," Cedars-Sinai announced Friday. "The two women continue to receive appropriate treatment for thallium poisoning."

They were in fair condition Friday, according to The Associated Press. They have said they will not grant media interviews at this time.

They were discharged from a hospital in Moscow, Russia, where they were visiting as tourists, before returning home to Los Angeles, where they live.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow told CNN that Russian authorities were investigating how the women may have been poisoned.

The two women, who were born in the former Soviet Union, don't believe they were deliberately poisoned, their lawyer, Frank Capwell, told AP.

"No cloak-and-dagger, no conspiracy theories came to light. It was just painfully obvious that it was just an accident," he said, according to AP.

Typical symptoms of thallium poisoning include dehydration, heart complications and hair loss.

Thallium is a bluish-white metal found in trace amounts in the Earth's crust, according to a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is mainly used in the manufacture of electronic devices, switches and closures. It once was used as a rat poison, but in 1972 was banned because of its potential harmful effects on humans.

Exposure to thallium occurs mainly through food, the agency said.

In November, former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital of suspected poisoning. Although thallium was initially suspected, traces of the radioactive substance polonium-210 were found in his body after his death, according to British authorities, who opened a murder inquiry into the case.

Before he died, Litvinenko accused the Kremlin of orchestrating his poisoning on orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, a charge that Putin has strongly denied.