Businessman Sopot charged with instigating assault on journalist Domnikov - Investigative Committee
MOSCOW. May 8 (Interfax) - Businessman Pavel Sopot has been charged with instigating an assault on Novaya Gazeta journalist Igor Domnikov, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax.
"Moscow investigative authorities have indicted Sopot for committing a crime described in Criminal Code Articles 33 and 111 (instigation of deliberate infliction of bodily injuries in connection with the victim's professional duties)," Markin said.
Sopot was detained in a joint operation conducted by the Investigative Committee, the Federal Corrections Service and police, he said.
"Moscow's Presnensky Court will consider the investigation's request on taking Sopot into custody on Wednesday," Markin said.
"Investigators have determined that a gang was set up in Naberezhniye Chelny by its resident Eduard Tagiryanov in the mid-1990s. By the end of the 1990s, its influence expanded into a number of Russian regions, including Moscow, the Lipetsk region and some other territories," he said.
In the early 2000, members of this gang created a system of cross-cancellation of debts between Gazprom-Avia and some enterprises in the Lipetsk region, he said.
"Novaya Gazeta correspondent Igor Domnikov published a number of critical reports on the social situation in the Lipetsk region at that period of time. In response to this, businessman Pavel Sopot decided to arrange an assault on the journalist so as to consolidate his position among local businessmen," Markin said.
"Sopot shared these plans with his acquaintance Tagiryanov, who supported this and instructed his men to shadow Domnikov, identify his residence and commit an assault," he said.
"In fulfilling this order, gang members secretly shadowed the journalist from the Novaya Gazeta headquarters to his home and hit him in the head area at least ten times with a hammer on May 12, 2000," he said.
Domnikov died at the hospital some time later.
The Supreme Court of Tatarstan convicted Tagiryanov and other members of the gang for this crime in 2007. A criminal case against those who ordered and instigated the assault was separated from the main investigation.