The police put Viktor Kokarev, a journalist and public figure from Syktyvkar, on the wanted list. Information about this follows from the wanted card in the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Novaya Gazeta drew attention to it.
The card says that the journalist is wanted «under the article of the Criminal Code.» In early April, security forces came to Kokarev, as well as to an employee of the regional office of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Ilya Boloban, and a supporter of the party, Svyatoslav Krasikov, with a search.
Card from the search base of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Investigative actions took place in the case of robbery with violence (paragraph “d” of part 2 of article 161 of the Criminal Code), Boloban was later sent to a pre-trial detention center. Kokarev and Krasikov were witnesses in the case.
A complaint against the activists was written by a resident of Syktyvkar Tatyana Kuznetsova. In a statement, she said that on March 27 she came to an appointment with State Duma deputy Oleg Mikhailov, but Boloban, Kokarev and Krasikov beat her and took away a phone worth 59 thousand rubles. At the same time, during the searches, the security forces did not find the phone, the theft of which the woman said.
Oleg Mikhailov himself, to whom Kuznetsova intended to get, called the woman a «provoker». “When I asked her to go out into the corridor, she started screaming and swearing, asked me to call an ambulance for her. I told her that she looked great and didn't need an ambulance. She refused to leave. As a result, the police were called, and she said that her phone had been stolen, ”the deputy recalled in a conversation with Sever.Realii journalists.
In a conversation with Novaya Gazeta, Kokarev suggested that since he was announced wanted, then his status in the case was changed from a witness to a suspect. At the same time, the journalist did not receive any notifications about a change in the procedural status.
In 2020, Kokarev ran for the Komi parliament from the Communist Party. After Kokarev and his friends on the evening of September 4 made a remark to the agitator of the Rodina party, who pasted over the lampposts with leaflets, they were approached by three unidentified persons with their faces covered and sprayed with pepper spray in their faces.
On the evening of September 7 at Kokarev was attacked again with spray cans, one of his acquaintances was beaten. The journalist associated the attack on himself with the political technologists of the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who were involved in the Rodina campaign. Later, because of the incident, the Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a criminal case on beatings (Article 116 of the Criminal Code).