German prosecutor investigates possible poisoning of Russian journalist

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Click here to see the summaryGerman authorities are investigating a possible poisoning attack in Munich last autumn on a Russian dissident journalist who had written critical articles about her country’s invasion of Ukraine, the Berlin prosecutor has confirmed. In an article published with Russian-language outlet Meduza and US publication n+1 on Tuesday night, journalist Elena Kostyuchenko said she was tipped off by a source in Ukrainian military reconnaissance last March about Russian plans to assassinate her. On 17 October, the journalist travelled to Munich to apply for a Ukrainian visa to continue covering the war for Meduza, an independent news website headquartered in Riga in Latvia. Kostyuchenko says she was later questioned by a German senior detective who had run the investigation into the killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Chechen exile shot dead by a Russian assassin in a park in central Berlin in 2019. She has cited as her inspiration to enter journalism the late Russian Novaya Gazeta journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was poisoned in 2004 and shot dead in 2006. “Reports that Russian journalists Elena Kostyuchenko and Irina Babloyan may have been poisoned in Germany and Georgia are extremely alarming, and must be investigated at once,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s programme director.