A Russian journalist who was thrown into a Siberian drunk tank and
savagely beaten by a young police officer died Wednesday, in a case
that has sparked a national conversation about the latent alcoholism
and casual violence that wind their way through life in this
winter-hardened land.
journalist who specialized in writing about economics. A few days into
the new year, in the thick of a 10-day Russian holiday known for its
debaucheries, Popov was arrested and thrown into the police holding
cell reserved for the drunk and disorderly.
He was taken home the next day, but he had been
beaten so badly his wife grew alarmed and took him to a hospital. He
soon lapsed into a coma from severe damage to his internal organs.
Because Popov was a journalist, and because
is a country where not-uncommon attacks on journalists are carefully
tracked, his death drew national attention. News conferences were
called. The Tomsk drunk tank was closed down. The deputy police chief
resigned, along with the supervisor of the holding cell. The police
chief apologized. The young officer was arrested and confessed.
But human rights officials warn that the case is
just one small story in a tapestry of alcoholism, police brutality and
the expectation of authoritative impunity that bedevils today’s
“The only thing different about this case is that he
happened to be a journalist, so it became a high-profile public case.
But the same thing happens every day,” said Svetlana Gannushkina, a
human rights lawyer and chairwoman of
Civic Assistance committee. “Usually the cases are just closed down
because there’s no evidence, nobody testifies, and it’s impossible to
get to the bottom of it.”
There’s no indication that Popov’s death was the
deliberate killing of a journalist. He had worked for years as a
spokesman for the now-bankrupt Yukos oil company; more recently he
opened a publishing company and printing plant, and wrote columns about
economics.
“Anybody could be beaten like that,” said Konstantin
Karpachyov, editor of the Tomsk edition of Moskovsky Komsomolets
newspaper. “He was not a high-profile journalist and he was not
publicly known. We can’t say he had a big name in local journalism.”
Popov wound up in one of the many drunk tanks that exist across
The drunk tanks are notoriously harrowing places.
People who wash into police custody during the wee hours are sometimes
beaten, forced into cold showers or lashed to cots; they often lose
their wallets or cellphones for good.
The 26-year-old police officer told investigators he
lost control of himself because of stress, a Tomsk investigator told a
news conference Wednesday, according to reports on Interfax. The
policeman, Alexei Mitayev, will undergo a battery of psychiatric tests
next month.
The investigator told reporters that Mitayev was
suffering “a lengthy, traumatizing situation” because he had fathered
young children with two different women.
“Essentially, he lived between two families,” investigator
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