Safronov worked as a military editor for Vedomosti and Kommersant newspapers covering military issues before becoming an adviser to the head of the Russian space agency (Roskosmos), Dmitry Ragozin, two months before he was arrested in July 2020.
Russian prosecutors today asked for a 24-year prison sentence for former journalist Ivan Safronov on charges of high treason, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing the Moscow City Court.
Safronov worked as a military editor for Vedomosti and Kommersant newspapers covering military issues before becoming an adviser to the head of the Russian space agency (Roskosmos), Dmitry Ragozin, two months before he was arrested in July 2020.
Safronov denies accusations that he passed military secrets on Russian arms sales in the Middle East and Africa to NATO member Czech Republic while working as a journalist in 2017, which he called a “complete travesty of justice and common sense ».
As the channel reports in the telegram, pervii odel cited by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta.Europe, “there is no evidence of ‘criminal activity’ in Ivan’s case. Even the witnesses on behalf of the accusers (zero excepted) in court stated that Safronov was engaged in ordinary journalism, did not break the law and did not reveal state secrets.”
The ultimate treason, in the opinion of investigator Chaban, prosecutor Loktionov and his colleagues, consists in retelling some articles to the foreign journalist. All of Safronov’s articles are in open access, he writes the channel and lists his articles.
Yesterday the investigative journalism website Proekt, which learned about the indictment for high treason, wrote that “journalists, studying the documents, discovered that the indictment did not find, however, the weapon of the crime, did not find witnesses and did not determine the motive , while all such ‘secret’ information is found in open sources”.
At the same time, the indictment included the testimony of journalists who were often far removed from military matters. For example, Proekt reports, the member of the Council for Human Rights (in opposition to the president of Russia) Ekaterina Vinokourova was briefed on the matter by the investigators about the correspondence that Safronov had with the Czech citizen Martin Laris, after which she herself stated that “these issues ‘allow the disclosure’ of state secrets”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had claimed that the prosecution of Safronov was not related to his journalistic activity, but to “a fairly long period of his work as Rogozin’s assistant in the government and Roskosmos”. This statement has raised questions among journalists and lawyers, as Safronov is accused of actions committed in the summer of 2017. At Roskosmos, Safronov started working for a short time before his arrest.
State-owned Roskosmos had confirmed that Safronov’s case was in no way related to his activity there. The representative of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, referring to the head of state’s ignorance of the Safronov case, described it as “details”. The head of Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, was also questioned in connection with the Safromnov case.
RES-EMP
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