Russian prosecutors: still no suspects in drug case previously used to arrest Ivan Golunov

The criminal drug distribution case under which Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov was charged and later released for lack of evidence remains open: after Golunov was cleared, law enforcement officials were left to find the true source of the drugs that the journalist said police had planted in his possessions. However, no suspects in the case have yet been found, said Alexander Kurennoy, a representative of Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office.

According to Kurennoy, there were initially two open cases: one against Golunov and one against Golunov and other, as-yet-unidentifiable suspects. When the charges against Golunov were dropped, the two cases were unified, but “there is still a criminal [drug distribution] case against an unidentified party, and that case is ongoing. Nobody has closed it,” Kurennoy explained.

Yesterday, news emerged that the Prosecutor General’s Office had transferred the case to Russia’s Investigative Committee. Kurennoy said it had been assigned to the Committee’s central apparatus but did not specify whether investigations of law enforcement actions during the Golunov case had made any progress.