- Date
- 06/06/1995
- First
- Alexander
- Surname
- KONOVALENKO
- Sex/Age
- M
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- ?J
- Place
- police station
- Job
- journalist
- Medium
- Federal District Plus
- SOUTH
- Street, Town, Region
- Volgograd
- Freelance
- no
- Local/National
- local, Krestyanskoe slovo
- Other Ties
- Cause of Death
- murder, beaten
- Legal Qualification
- 103 (murder), 171 (abuse of office)
- Impunity
- trial, conviction, 4 February 1998
Alexander Konovalenko, a journalist with the Krestyanskoe slovo newspaper, died in Volgograd’s Central district police station on 6 June 1995. Officially it was said he had fallen from a chair and hit his head during interrogation.
For three years Konovalenko’s widow Anna fought to prove the absurdity of the official version and in 1998 the policeman who struck her husband was sentenced to five years imprisonment.
The incident began when Konovalenko had intervened on behalf of a contract soldier who was being roughly treated by the police. He himself was then taken into custody where he was struck across the head with a rubber police baton and died.