Kremlin blames ‘bathtub accident’ for Russian dissident being thrown out of fourth story window
Yesterday we brought you the disturbing story of Russian attorney Nikolai Gorokhov, who was thrown out the window of his fourth floor Moscow apartment building just one day before he was scheduled to give testimony that would have been detrimental to Vladimir Putin. We also pointed out that the Kremlin already appeared to be laying the groundwork to frame it as an accident.
Sure enough, Russian state-controlled media is now claiming that Nikolai Gorokhov wasn’t thrown out of the window, but he instead accidentally fell out of the window while trying to move a bathtub or hot tub. These Russian news outlets, according to the NY Times, are even going so far as to post photos of a shattered tub outside Gorokhov’s building. He somehow managed to survive the fall but at last word he’s still in intensive care, meaning it’s probably impossible for him to tell his side of the story right now. But his political allies are speaking up on his behalf.
As we reported yesterday, Gorokhov was set to testify today in defense of Sergei Magnitsky, a political activist who was murdered by the Russian government in 2009. Putin is putting on the posthumous show-trial in an apparent attempt at smearing Magnitsky’s legacy, in order to make it easier for Donald Trump to get the Magnitsky Act repealed – which would generate billions in profits for the Kremlin. In addition Gorokhov was a star witness in a Russian corruption probe led by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whom Trump just fired.
Bill Browder, a Russian dissident who was the first to assert that Nikolai Gorokhov had been thrown out of the window, is now asserting that the Russian government is doing everything it can to prevent a serious investigation of the incident. It appears the Kremlin that Gorokhov went hurtling out of a fourth story window due to a bathtub accident. Contribute to Palmer Report
