Tyumen region investigators have charged the editor of a local newspaper with inciting hatred against police in two articles published in 2008, the Investigative Committee said Wednesday.
Vladimir Yefimov, 47, of Vechernyaya Tyumen, a publication with irregular circulation of about 10,000 copies, is accused of running articles containing "signs of inciting hostility and hatred toward police officers as a social group."
Investigators did not specify the articles in their statement, saying only that they were published April 28 and June 30, 2008.
Yefimov said by phone Wednesday that he became a target of law enforcement agencies after a March 2008 article speculating that Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin might have impregnated staffer Anastasia Rakova when he served as the Kremlin chief of staff.
Yefimov, who faces up to five years in prison, said the newspaper never published any materials offending police. Only the June issue is available on Vechernyaya Tyumen’s web site, and it contains no articles on police.
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