With slim chance of solving journalists’ murders in Africa, propaganda points the blame on Khodorkovsky who hired them

What happened
A month after the murder of three Russian journalists filming a documentary about Russian mercenaries in the Central African Republic, credible accusations have emerged against the organizer of the journalists’ trip — opposition figurehead Mikhail Khodorkovsky. We learned how poorly planned the trip to one of the world’s most dangerous countries was from leaked chat messages. The correspondence was published by a media outlet affiliated with businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, believed to be the financial backer of the same Russian mercenary outfit that was the subject of the investigation.
- One of the Russia’s most experienced war correspondents, Orkhan Dzhemal, acclaimed documentary film director Alexander Rastorguev, and their cameraman, Kirill Radchenko, were killed in the CAR on 31 July. They were in the country, which is in a state of permanent civil war, to make a film about Russian mercenaries from Wagner, a private military company sponsored by Prigozhin, “Putin’s cook”, who is officially accused of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The investigation was ordered by the Center for Investigation Management (CIM), financed by Khodorkovsky. We wrote in detail about how the journalists died here. We haven’t learnt anything new about the murders since then. But there have been heated debates in Russia about the extent to which Khodorkovsky is to blame for the deaths.
- Khodorkovsky and CIM, for whom the murdered journalists were making a film, are accused of poor organization and trying to save money by cutting costs in a dangerous country. State-owned and pro-Kremlin media outlets blamed Khodorkovsky for the death of the journalists straight after the tragedy. But a reason for a more balanced discussion appeared only this week with the publication of correspondence between CIM editors and the journalists. The Russian outlet Federal News Agency (FAN) published the conversation laid the blame at Khodorkovsky’s doorstep. FAN is believed to be owned by Prigozhin. It is unclear how the publication got badly organized: the reporters did not have any security, nor means of communication with the organizers, nor local guides. At the same time, we learned the strangest detail of the whole story. The local fixer, called “Martin”, who described himself as an employee of the UN, was given to the murdered journalists ahead of their journey by a reporter from FAN, the publication that is connected to Prigozhin, whose activities the journalists planned to investigate.
- The organizers did not do a background check on Martin and didn’t investigate if he actually worked at the UN. After the murders, it emerged that no one even knew Martin’s last name, and a representative of the UN in CAR confirmed they do not have an employee with that name. Chats between Martin and CIM editors, passed on by a journalist, were published by the BBC Russian Service. From the chats, it is clear Martin ceased making contact just after the Russian journalists arrived in CAR. But he did give them a driver, who survived the deadly attack and is now in custody as a key witness.
- The publication of the correspondence gave pro-Kremlin journalists and bloggers the opportunity to stir up accusations against Khodorkovsky. On Thursday, Khodorkovsky announced the editor-in-chief of CIM had been fired and that he was ending his financial support of CIM. Russian journalists discussed to what extent the organizers of the trip are to blame, and how the editors should have behaved in this kind of situation. But the more important question remains: who murdered the journalists in CAR and could Wagner mercenaries have had anything to do with the killing? The chances of getting answers to these questions are growing slimmer by the day. The CAR government is not capable of carrying out an investigation — they were only able to repatriate the bodies with the help of the local UN mission. The affair will be investigated by Russia’s Investigative Committee — but Russian investigators flew to CAR for only two days. In all likelihood, we will never learn the truth.
Why the world should care
The story surrounding the murder of journalists in the CAR reveals a lot about the current state of Russia’s media. Under conditions when independent journalism is totally separate from mainstream media with its large audiences and budgets, investigations which are important for society as a whole are carried out by structures which are far from ideal for this purpose — such as the fund of opposition politician Navalny or projects funded to fight the Kremlin by businessman Khodorkovsky. In their discussions about the poorly organized trip to the CAR, Russian journalists admitted that in any other independent outlet the organizational process would not have been all that much better.
Peter Mironenko
This newsletter is made with the support of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley.
