- Date
- 16/05/2000
- First
- Igor
- Surname
- DOMNIKOV
- Sex/Age
- M, 42
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- J
- Place
- stairwell entrance
- Job
- journalist
- Medium
- Federal District Plus
- Moscow
- Street, Town, Region
- Pererva St, Moscow
- Freelance
- no
- Local/National
- national, Novaya gazeta
- Other Ties
- Cause of Death
- beaten, contract killing
- Legal Qualification
- 105 (murder)
- Impunity
- trial, conviction, 01 August 2008
THIS PERSON DID NOT ORDER THE ATTACK ON DOMNIKOV (8 May 2013)
The Moscow Police have arrested a man they suspect of ordering the fatal attack on Igor Domnikov, and a source has leaked his name as businessman Pavel Sopot. In a statement Novaya gazeta said that Sopot was, according to their information, the intermediary who hired gang-leader Eduard Tagiryanov to carry out the attack but he received his orders from the former deputy governor of Lipetsk Region Sergei Dorovskoi. We hope that the investigation into the death of Domnikov will not end with today’s arrest but that all the guilty parties will be charged and prosecuted, no matter what posts they hold and what highly-placed patrons they may have (full text below).
*
A BRUTAL AND FATAL ATTACK (16 May 2000)
Igor Domnikov, editor of Novaya gazeta's special projects section, died in Moscow on 16 May 2000. He had lain unconscious in a Moscow hospital for two months ever since being attacked at 8 pm in the stairwell entrance of his Moscow apartment block. Domnikov was struck over the head several times with a heavy-duty hammer.
It was a series of articles by Domnikov about the new governor of the Lipetsk Region, published by Novaya gazeta in 1999 and early 2000, that led to the request to contact the journalist and "put him straight". After observing their victim for two weeks the team from Naberezhnye Chelny (Tatarstan) attacked.
Domnikov was born in Tomsk and studied journalism there before moving to Norilsk in 1981. After working for local papers he set up his own newspaper in 1995 but after pressure from the authorities he moved three years later to Moscow where he joined "Novaya gazeta".
The murder of Domnikov was solved when the gang who killed him, and their leader, were arrested in 2003 following the abduction and murder of a businessman in Tatarstan. In September 2006 gang members were put on trial accused of rape, extortion, abduction and over 20 murders committed since 1997.
There was not enough evidence, it was said, to charge the Moscow businessman who acted as intermediary between the deputy governor and the contract killers. He was reclassified as a witness and released. The deputy governor, who wanted Domnikov brought to Lipetsk, was also classed as a witness.
After the gang members were convicted in August 2008 "Novaya gazeta" appealed to the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's office to investigate and charge the latter.
THIS PERSON DID NOT ORDER THE ATTACK ON DOMNIKOV (8 May 2013)
The Moscow Police have arrested a man they suspect of ordering the fatal attack on Igor Domnikov, and a source has leaked his name as businessman Pavel Sopot. In a statement Novaya gazeta said that Sopot was, according to their information, the intermediary who hired gang-leader Eduard Tagiryanov to carry out the attack but he received his orders from the former deputy governor of Lipetsk Region Sergei Dorovskoi
We hope that the investigation into the death of Domnikov will not end with today’s arrest but that all the guilty parties will be charged and prosecuted, no matter what posts they hold and what highly-placed patrons they may have.
Those directly involved in the fatal attack on Igor Domnikov were convicted in 2008 and are now serving lengthy sentences for that and other crimes or life sentences.
[Note: The statute of limitations for murder under the current (1996) Criminal Code is 15 years.]
“Novaya gazeta”
*
“LIPETSK AWOKE IN AN ECONOMIC MIRACLE”
(Originally published in Novaya Gazeta on February 21, 2000;
translated for CPJ by Ekaterina Lysova)
[…] By the way, we have touched upon a name among the servants of the Komsomol that is most unloved by me—Dorovskoi, who is the deputy governor of economics. When you drive through the [Lipetsk] region and see something disgusting, you need not wonder who is responsible for it. […]
We should say that even the powerful Dorovskoi sometimes makes childish mistakes. But no one either reprimands him or points this out to him. For example, he authorized an ice cream factory, “as an exemption,” to sell its products from May to September on ice cream stands without cash registers “with the goal of improving customer service.” Even those who don’t know a lot about trade in Russia, will raise their eyebrows, unbutton the top of their shirts, and say after a moment of silence, “Wow, such a daring guy! I bet you he will be the boss in prison.”
Those people may be even more outraged when they find out that this authorization is fake, issued under an invalid number. But we shall reassure the skeptics: Nothing bad will happen to Dorovskoi. Believe me, he has been in even thicker situations, made even bigger mistakes, but he still walks free. I would very much like to make an upset face and demand that the Prosecutor General help his Lipetsk colleagues punish Dorovskoi for getting too intimate with Lipetsk’s ice cream [business], but, for some reason, I don’t believe that would make any difference.
Unfortunately, my storytelling gift is insufficient to convey the scope with which this sort of barter is practiced in the region. All this inedible mash of figures, names, and orders—it is not appropriate for the newspaper.
The system in its essence is simple. The businesses make money but do not pay taxes; they profit by pushing either their own products on the market, or some farm produce they bought at low prices. Sometimes things are head-on: The budget credits all debt, though much of it stays unpaid. It is not that interesting to dig inside this mess. I am just going to say that one-third of Lipetsk’s residents do not pay their maintenance bills—they have no money at all, while factory managements purchase large quantities of furniture, video and audio equipment, and so on.
[…]