Russia's senior investigator has denied threatening the life of a senior Novoya Gazeta journalist and forcing him to flee the country.

Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia's FBI-style Investigative Committee (SK), does admit arguing with the journalist, Sergei Sokolov. But he says he did not summon him to a private meeting in a forest in order to threaten him, as The Guardian reported yesterday.

Sokolov is deputy editor of Novoya Gazeta, which is well-known in Russia for its investigative reporting and campaigns against police abuses.

One of its senior reporters, Anna Politkovskaya, was shot dead in Moscow in 2006 in a case that is still unsolved.

The paper's editor, Dmitry Muratov, used an open letter to Bastrykin to accuse him of having threatened Sokolov's life.

He quoted from a taped recording of the heated exchange between Bastrykin and Sokolov. It can be heard on a Russian news website, Life News.

At least five journalists were arrested by police when they picketed Bastrykin's Investigative Committee offices to protest at his treatment of Sokolov.

The former Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the owner of Britain's Independent newspaper, Alexander Lebedev, together own 49% of Novaya Gazeta. The paper's staff control the remaining 51%.

Sokolov's whereabouts are not known.

Sources:BBC/Financial Times/The Guardian

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