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Putin sacks two senior police over reporter’s drugs arrest
MOSCOW, June 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – President Vladimir Putin on Thursday
sacked two senior police officers over the arrest of investigative reporter
Ivan Golunov on trumped up drugs charges.
The journalist’s arrest last week was widely seen as punishment for his
investigative work and sparked an unprecedented campaign of solidarity in
Russian society.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said he had requested
Putin dismiss the officers after lifting the charges against Golunov on the
basis of a lack of evidence.
On Thursday, Putin signed a decree to dismiss the police chief for western
Moscow, Major General Andrei Puchkov, and the head of the Moscow police
department for narcotics control, Major General Yury Devyatkin.
Golunov is a reporter for Meduza news site, which is based in EU member
Latvia. He walked free from a Moscow police building on Tuesday evening after
his house arrest was lifted.
Moscow police had charged him with attempted drug dealing, saying that
officers found him in possession of drugs including cocaine.
But as the details of the case attracted public outrage, they later
admitted that they had posted photographs of drugs paraphernalia that were
not taken in his flat.
Golunov’s supporters, including many influential journalists, mounted a
public campaign in his defence, holding protests outside Moscow police
headquarters.
The case has prompted wide-reaching questions about how Russian police
operate, with Golunov’s supporters and lawyers saying that police planted
drugs on him.
Kolokoltsev said the police who worked on the case have been suspended
pending an investigation.
On Wednesday, a few thousand protesters took to the streets of Moscow for
an unsanctioned march calling for broad reform of the law enforcement and
justice systems.
Police violently broke up the march and arrested more than 500 people,
according to OVD INFO, a monitor that tracks detentions.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1840HRS