Incarcerated since 2020, he is accused of having transmitted state secrets to an intelligence service from one of the NATO countries. He will have to purge his sentence in a “penitentiary colony of severe regime”.
Le Monde with afp
The former Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, specialist in military issues, was sentenced on Monday September 5 by a Russian court to twenty-two years in prison for high treason, noted a journalist from the France-Presse agency ( AFP) present at the hearing.
Recognized expert of defense questions, Ivan Safronov, handcuffed, in the glass cage where the defendants are held, welcomed this verdict by a smile, according to AFP journalist. His sympathizers present in the courtroom chanted “Vania [diminutive of Ivan], we love you”, while other people broke into sobs. The lawyers of the ex-journalist immediately announced their intention to appeal this conviction.
The prosecution argues that Mr. Safronov “transmitted information to representatives of foreign intelligence services, knowing that these could be used by NATO member states against Russia’s security”. Ivan Safronov is accused of having transmitted to a Russian-German political expert, also detained in Russia for “high treason”, information on Russian military operations in Syria, and to the Czech intelligence services elements on deliveries of weapons from Moscow to Africa. Mr. SAFRONOV firmly rejects these accusations.
He had previously worked for two Russian national daily newspapers, Vedomosti and Kommersant. Pushed to the resignation of Kommersant in 2019, in May 2020 he became an advisor to the former director of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitri Rogozine. Incarcerated since 2020, Mr. Safronov, 32, will have to serve his sentence in a “penitentiary colony of severe regime”, according to the decision of the municipal court of Moscow, which intervenes in full conflict in Ukraine.
“Revenge” of power
Monday, Novaïa Gazeta, a symbol of press freedom, spoke of a “revenge” of power against Ivan Safronov, for his articles regularly evoking the failures of the Russian army. That same day, Moscow revoked the license for the paper edition of this pillar of Russian investigation journalism, which had to suspend its broadcast in March.
The Basmanny of Moscow court invalidated the registration certificate of the paper version of Novaïa Gazeta, whose editor, Dmitri Mouratov was, was an in 2021 Colaréat of the Nobel Peace Prize. “Today, they killed the newspaper. They stole thirty years of their life to its employees. They deprived its readers of the right to information,” said the drafting in a press release, assuring, however, that his “spirit of freedom “would continue to exist.
This decision falls a few days after the funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the USSR, who died last Tuesday at 91, which was a co -founder of the newspaper. Mr. Mouratov had also taken the lead, on Saturday, of his funeral procession.
Pressure against independent media was already going to crescendo in Russia, but the Kremlin offensive in Ukraine since February has marked brutal acceleration. Dozens of media websites have been blocked, and journalists fled the country en masse.