Verdict in the trial of journalist Ivan Safronov

The accusation of high treason has been booming in Russia for several years. Above all, scientists working in the border area between high technology and the armaments industry must have the concern of suddenly being targeted by the domestic secret service FSB. The cases promise high prestige for the investigators. Old age or terminal illnesses are no reason for them to be lenient. What unites the cases above all is the lack of convincing evidence. But once caught by the FSB and the judiciary in Russia, it is rare for anyone to get away without an inhumanly heavy sentence.

Almost the maximum penalty

A verdict was pronounced this afternoon in a high treason trial in Moscow that fits into this series – and at the same time is intended to intimidate another professional group: the journalists. The 32-year-old Ivan Safronov, for many years a military-political correspondent for the daily newspaper Kommersant and briefly for the newspaper Vedomosti, has been in custody since June 2020 in Moscow’s Lefortovo remand prison, which belongs to the FSB.

Now he has been sentenced by the Moscow City Court to 22 years in a strict camp and a fine of 500,000 rubles (8,500 Swiss francs) – a draconian sentence that is just under the maximum possible of 25 years. The public prosecutor had asked for a prison sentence of 24 years for him.

At the time of his arrest, Safronov had just left journalism and started working as an adviser to then-head of the state space program Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozin. This allowed the Kremlin to claim that the arrest had nothing to do with Safronov’s journalistic activities.

The secret service accused him of betraying state secrets in seven cases. Safronov completely rejected the allegations. The leading FSB investigator in the case, Alexander Tschaban, who is known for his unscrupulousness, tried to put pressure on him by any means possible. Since his arrest, he has been denied a reunion and a phone call to his mother, sister or partner. Safronov’s father, a former military man and then also a military journalist with “Kommersant”, fell out of his apartment window in 2007 under unclear circumstances and died.

However, Safronov remained steadfast – even when the representative of the public prosecutor’s office offered him the prospect of halving the sentence in the middle of the pleas against an admission of guilt. That alone showed the arbitrary nature of the proceedings.

Revenge for persistent reporting

Safronov, his lawyers and a large number of former colleagues from journalism are firmly convinced that the case is about two things: a kind of revenge by officials from the army, armaments and space sectors, who always complain about Safronov’s persistent investigations had annoyed. And in general it was about settling accounts with independent journalism, which had come under increasing pressure in recent years anyway. Journalists and the editors of the independent media, which are now working abroad because of the political situation, demanded an acquittal and the immediate release of their colleague. Corresponding demands also came from abroad – for example from the EU Commission.

These seem all the more justified as the research by the Internet portal Proekt.media, which is banned in Russia as an “undesirable organization”, has revealed on the basis of the leaked indictment that how hollow the allegations against Safronov are. As is usual with treason trials, the whole trial took place behind closed doors.

The indictment related to Safronov’s exchange with two interlocutors. He has been friends with one of them, a Czech journalist, since his professional stay in Moscow. He wrote texts for a platform he founded that allegedly contain secret details of Russian arms cooperation with countries in North Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. The Russian authorities believe the Czech to be a secret service agent, which he denies.

He is said to have written similar articles for the German-Russian political scientist Demuri Voronin. He introduced himself as a representative of a German-Swiss think tank and paid good money by Russian standards. Dozens of Russian journalists worked with him. Voronin has also been in the clutches of the FSB for a year and a half. He is said to have even been persuaded to make a confession, which he is said to have retracted in the meantime. Forced to reveal the name of his alleged liaison officer with the secret service, he gave the – descriptive – name “Wicker”.

All information was already public

As the research by Proekt.media shows, practically all of the content that Safronow described in the articles for the two clients was publicly accessible and had already been picked up by other media. So it can’t be a matter of state secrets. Even the witnesses called by the prosecution were unable to provide evidence. Their remarks usually amounted to nothing more than fundamental criticism of the fact that Safronov always wanted to find out so much – something that characterized him as a persistent journalist.

There is little doubt that an example should be made of Safronov. His area of ​​activity – the armaments industry and the army – is fundamentally sensitive journalistic territory. That’s why the case is also timely for the regime. In an unprecedented manner, what remains of independent journalism in Russia has been destroyed in recent months. On Monday, a court revoked the license of Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper of Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov. From the end of March it was no longer published for the time being.

Censorship laws prevent Russian journalists and media who remain in the country from truthfully reporting on the armed forces and the war against Ukraine. Recent tightening of the laws on high treason, espionage and media work can be well illustrated with a draconian verdict: Anyone who exchanges ideas with foreigners lives dangerously.

settlement with the lawyers

The procedure goes even further, because it also fundamentally demonstrated the non-existence of the rule of law in Russia. Safronov’s defense attorneys were originally the lawyers of the Petersburg collective Komanda 29, specializing in treason trials, led by civil rights attorney Ivan Pavlov. During the course of Safronov’s trial, the authorities took action against Pavlov and his colleagues and forced Komanda 29 to disband. Pavlov was wanted and he and another defender had to leave Russia.

Since the end of June, Dmitry Talantov, who later became one of Safronov’s defense attorneys, has also been in custody for “discrediting the army”. With the trial of Safronov, the FSB wanted to intimidate not only the journalists, but also the lawyers who come to the aid of these and others threatened by arbitrariness.