Sunday, 29 April 2018

Port Arthur Massacre: Querulous in

Question?

An Open Letter to Dr Paul Mullen Regarding Martin Bryant *

by Mary Maxwell
To Paul Mullen, Psychiatrist and “Chief of Forensic Psychiatry at Monash University.”
I was shocked to see, when perusing a 2006 article in The Age, that you told that newspaper that Dunblane was the trigger point for Port Arthur.
What? What are you talking about? How could you say that in 2006, completely contradicting what you presented to the DPP in 1996?
Dunblane
The Age article, dated March 29, 2006, is entitled “Shedding Light on the Port Arthur Killer.” (O Gorrrd.) The reporter quotes you as saying:
“He [Martin Bryant] followed Dunblane. His planning started with Dunblane. Before that he was thinking about suicide, but Dunblane and the early portrayal of the killer, Thomas Hamilton, changed everything.”
You know that is not true, Dr Mullen. Did you even write it, or did the media furnish it from their endless stock of ideas to deceive the public? The goal of the real murderers is to persuade us that the real Martin Bryant was at Port Arthur on April 28, 1996. No he was not. You know he was not.
In 1996 you offered a different bunch of misstatements. Have you no conscience?
In the official court case, R v Bryant we see your statement:
“I have prepared this report at the request of Mr Bryant’s legal representative, Mr John Avery. It is based on interview conducted on the 4 May 1996 at the Royal Hobart Hospital, lasting in total some 3 1/2 hours. In addition I had access to extensive documentation.”
Here is your description of your talk with Martin, Beginning on page 361 of the DPP’s transcript (as presented to the Court in November 1996):
“The enormity of Mr Bryant’s crimes call out for some explanation equally dramatic and extraordinary. It is not to be wondered at that the media have either attempted to portray Mr Bryant as afflicted by a dramatic mental illness, such as schizophrenia, or to be some kind of evil genius. In my opinion the origins of this terrible tragedy are not to be found in a single dramatic and sufficient cause, but in the interaction and combination of a range of influences and events. We may never know fully the intentions and state of mind which led to the killings, but a number of contributions are apparent.”
Dr Mullen you may not know “the intentions which led to the killings”, but they certainly were not Bryant’s intentions. They were the intentions of the actual murderers, not some poor patsy.
I continue the quote:
“Mr Bryant is an intellectually limited man who from early childhood showed marked impairment in his capacity to cope with interpersonal and social relationships. He responded to frustrations with aggression towards others and towards property. From an early age his behaviour was characterised by an unfortunate tendency to take delight in the discomfort of others and in the tormenting of people and creatures weaker than himself. This probably reflected in part the struggles of a child who felt buffeted and helpless in the face of the demands of the world and who sought to gain some sense of power, and restore some sense of self-esteem, through ridiculing and hurting others.” [all emphasis in this article is by me, MM]
What’s Your Source?
That is not true. What record of his childhood are you reading from? You did not interview his mother or sister. Whom did he ridicule? From what we see in the two lengthy interviews with Martin – by police on July 4, 1996 and by John Avery in October 1996 — there is no tone of ridicule. No indication that he wanted to hurt others, rather the opposite. He even mentioned that he does not do practice-shooting with glass bottles in case the broken glass would hurt an animal’s foot.
So who are you to tell the Court that this is a personality feature of Martin. Did he ridicule anyone while he was being interviewed by you? Did he strike you as the ridiculing type? I’ll bet not.
You opine, in a sympathetic-sounding way:
“Mr Bryant received considerable support from his father and there are indications in the record during his later adolescence that a degree of stability and more effective social integration was beginning to emerge in this young man. The relationship with Ms Harvey for all its eccentric features probably added to Mr Bryant’s increasing sense of having some place in the world. The death first of Ms Harvey and then the suicide of his father stripped away from Mr Bryant the two main sources of support and stability in his life.”
Well, it would wouldn’t it. By the way do you know that a cop named Phil Pyke told the world that when Martin heard of his Dad’s death he laughed. Of course that cop can say anything, as there is no chance given to Martin to refute anything.
By the way, you must be aware from the publication in The Bulletin in April 2006 that Martin told his lawyer, John Avery, that two doctors at Risdon were trying to brainwash him into not having a trial. Who were those two? They have been disguised in the transcript by Avery as Dr B and Dr D. When you heard of it, did you rush to find out? One of them could be Dr Ian Sale.
Schizo
It looks like your assignment from Avery in 1996 was to make sure no one could claim that the 29 year-old Bryant was unfit to stand trial. To that end you brought up the reference to schizophrenia — to rule it out. I quote you:
“In February 1984 Mr Bryant was assessed by a very experienced clinical psychiatrist, Dr Cunningham-Dax. This assessment was initiated to consider Mr Bryant’s eligibility for a disability pension. Dr Cunningham-Dax stated that Mr Bryant was intellectually handicapped and personality disordered. He also raised the possibility that he might be developing an illness of a schizophrenic type.
“On the basis of this report and subsequent assessments which relied upon it, Mr Bryant was granted a disability pension. There are subsequent references to Mr Bryant having a schizophrenic illness and of being a paranoid schizophrenic in the records of Dr Mather (December 1991) and Dr P M McCartney (December 1991). These diagnostic formulations, it transpired, were not the results of the doctors own conclusions, but based on the report of Mr Bryant’s mother that he had been diagnosed by Dr Cunningham-Dax as suffering from this illness.”
What? A doctor makes a “diagnostic formulation” based on what a mother said a doctor said? Hello? You know no doctor ever does that. He or she would look at the records and examine the patient. This is all getting to be absurd.
Not So Freudian Slip
At one point (this is kind of funny) you made a slip. The judge of course could have ordered that the record not show it but Justice William Cox did not object and needless to say the ‘defense” lawyer John Avery said noting. I quote you:
“[Martin] described his pleasure in life as watching the television, music and killing. – sorry, I’ll reread that. “Mr Bryant described his pleasure in life as watching the television, music and drinking. The music that he most favoured was the sound track of the Lion King and records made by Cliff Richard. On direct questioning he acknowledged that he spent a considerable amount of time watching videos and going to the pictures.”
Your Mike Willessee Chatter
Now for the 2016 “twentieth anniversary” TV show hosted by Mike Willessee. You said of Bryant:
“He wanted to be seen as powerful and evil. Some of the early news coverage which portrayed him as demonic was exactly what he wanted — delighted him.”
Ahem, did he say to you “Dr Mullen, the news coverage delighted me?” Did he say that at your one-and-only meeting with him, dated May 4 – five days after his burns? Martin claims he was not allowed to see TV or read papers – and that hospital personnel were not allowed to tell him what the Port Arthur massacre was all about.
So how did you know he was delighted? Do you have ESP?
What about My Querulousness?
I see from Pubmed that you have written about those of us who go to court to seek redress. I quote you:
“Querulous paranoia was once of considerable clinical and academic interest in psychiatry. Over the last 40 years, however, it has virtually disappeared from the professional landscape. This decline occurred [when folks were] asserting their individual rights through the pursuit of claims and grievances …. through which they seek their vision of justice”.
Their vision? Is “due process” a personal hallucination? I continue:
“This article examines querulous behaviour in the vexatious litigant …. The phenomenological and nosological issues [diagnosis] are outlined and the risks of the emergence of threatening and violent behaviour is emphasized.
“Threats should not be ignored, for a variety of reasons. Approaches to managing querulous behaviour in the courts and the complaint organizations are discussed …Those caught up in a querulous pursuit of their notion of justice are amenable to management that can ameliorate their suffering and reduce the disruption they create.”
Just simply Wow.
Aramoana
Finally, but you knew I was coming to this, Doctor? Aramoana, New Zealand. The killing spree by David Grey, at which Michael Dyson handled the SOG response. You handled the psychiatry. So, everybody wants to know: why were you living in Aramoana of all places, a nice, cosmopolitan Melburnian like You?
People are dying to know. I’m waiting to see what you can come up with. Maybe an elderly aunt asked you to visit or something? Maybe you study a particular species of conch native to the area?
As recently as August 12, 2015 the Canberra Times recounted your glories:
“He interviewed Martin Bryant, the man who shot 35 people dead in the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, and Hoddle Street mass murderer Julian Knight, who he more recently assessed as being unlikely to repeat the random shooting spree that killed seven in Melbourne in 1987. He worked on the Snowtown​ murders in the 1990s, also known as the bodies-in-barrels case, which has been described as Australia’s worst serial killings. [They forgot Aramoana.]
“Professor Mullen has also worked as an expert assessor for the US Army defence team acting for former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, and assessed Bali nine pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran years before their execution.”
What was the point of an Australian shrink studying prisoners caught in the Indonesian justice system? And what did you do at Chelmsford?
“The court appointed [Mullen] as its expert in the Chelmsford Hospital medical negligence case, the largest of its kind to date, which sued for the devastating use of electroconvulsive and deep-sleep therapy on patients with mental illness.”
Never mind I don’t want to know.
–Mary Maxwell is an elderly querulous American Australian with a bee in her bonnet about the continued incarceration of a patsy in Oz, Martin Bryant, and a patsy in US: Jahar Tsarnaev.


Thursday, 26 April 2018

Toronto van attack: genuine or not?

Footage has emerged showing an intense standoff between a Toronto police officer and the suspect behind the horror van rampage that left 10 dead and 15 injured on Monday

Initial photographic evidence of fabrication of part of the event!

Image result for toronto van attack images vince
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=toronto+van+attack+images+vince&rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB463GB464&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq0P7OqtnaAhXSYlAKHbVVAoAQsAQIKA&biw=1280&bih=893#imgrc=cJcMhirdwA-XwM:

Please note I am not arguing that people were not killed by a moving truck. Rather that elements of the media account appear to be inconsistent. This is principally based upon the direction of the shadows cast that differ significantly. Repeated familiar and coincidental features of high-profile terror events, are evident but not discussed here.

http://video.dailymail.co.uk/preview/mol/2018/04/24/6664197020165227183/636x382_MP4_6664197020165227183.mp4


(Image: Twitter/ @vce7)



The attack occurred on the same day as the G7 foreign dignitaries meeting in Downtown Toronto. Shades of 7/7?


Video: A.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOW05IVejNE  Take particular note of images taken from above from 1.37 mins to the end, compared and contrasted with preceding footage. See also:  
Video B.  https://youtu.be/qI8BQtD5aKk 

The following come from "Vince" who appears as "vce7". This identifier also appears on the second part of Video A. 
  
Video 1.   https://twitter.com/vce7/status/988558070488993793

Video 2:  https://twitter.com/vce7/status/988557469893976064

Video 3.  https://twitter.com/vce7/status/988557786534612993
Clearly at a later time than the first part of Video A!

In the first part of Video A showing the initial stand off, the sun shadows in this West/East street are clearly perpendicular to the direction of the street. However in both the second part of Video A and in Video 3 that purport to show the same incident, the shadows are distinctly different. They now point in a North Easterly direction. This cannot be explained by just camera angle because Video 3 is also taken at ground level, in much the same position as the first part of Video A, although from a different vehicle that has a black rather than a white off-side (left) wing mirror.

The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the first part of Video A, widely circulated by the media channels (see also the still images below) was in fact taken at a slightly earlier time than the sequence taken from above at the end of Video A and replicated in the arrest sequence in Video 3 at ground level.

As these sequences purport to be the identical confrontation and arrest the difference in shadow direction can only be explained, extraordinary as it may seem,  that one or other is actually on a different day! One or other must be fraudulent and staged in advance of the actual incident! As the view from above in Video A and from the ground in Video 3 concur and more accurately reflect the sun position time, this would appear to be the more likely candidate for the actual event on the day it was reported.

Vince @vce7 appears to have Beijing and Ontario links. He also has an Instagram a/c here: Instagram.com/vinceseven   He says here: https://twitter.com/vce7/status/988531712484368385
"Sorry for all those replies that I didn’t get a chance to see as my Twitter is exploding. To be clear, not a single media has been willing to give the man who took this video a dime."


It would appear that Vince is Chinese and interested in astro/physics and politics, but is not the actual guy who took the videos referred to. A question to him as to who it was, goes unanswered. Given earlier events in Europe where the filmer was a indicator of who knew in advance, this is a detail of some significance.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_van_attack



"First of 10 victims of deadly Toronto van attack ID'd as Anne Marie D'Amico
Alek Minassian, 25, was arrested and is set for a court appearance this morning
CBC News · Posted: Apr 24, 2018 5:20 AM"
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-van-attack-victim-identifications-1.4632509




Image result for toronto van attack images
CBC.ca April 23, 2018 05:07  http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1217432643522


Now note direction of shadows here:

Police confirmed that 25-year-old Alek Minassian, of Richmond Hill, was arrested over the attack on Monday afternoon


Image result for toronto van attack images
http://blurbstory.com/CBCNews/988569655370534913

Image result for toronto van attack images
http://capitolzero.com/2018/04/24/heres-what-we-know-about-alek-minassian-the-25-year-old-suspect-in-the-toronto-van-attack/



http://blurbstory.com/htTweets/988620293772984320




Image result for toronto van attack images

http://www.iheartradio.ca/610cktb/news/breaking-5-people-have-died-in-toronto-van-attack-1.3772207


Note posters.
Image result for toronto van attack images
CBC.ca April 23, 2018 05:07  http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1217432643522











https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/the-latest-court-appearance-scheduled-for-van-attack-suspect-1.3898419




Related image
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=toronto+van+attack+images&rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB463GB464&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3lPWT_9LaAhWG66QKHSrYB3QQ7AkIVQ&biw=1280&bih=893#imgdii=VsWEyk633bxABM:&imgrc=nZDUrV-zZftydM:




Image result for toronto van attack images
https://news.unclesamsmisguidedchildren.com/terror-attack-van-rams-pedestrians-toronto-canada-multiple-fatalities/





Image result for toronto van attack images
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2018/04/23/lead-toronto-incident-kamil-karamali-live.cnn


The next image is of the alleged route in a North South direction. Note shadows accord with the "Vance" images but not with the initial ones of the stand off confrontation.


@Noahsnotebook  http://www.iheartradio.ca/610cktb/news/breaking-5-people-have-died-in-toronto-van-attack-1.3772207



This video: https://www.thesun.co.uk/3ee6a5d4-ad70-41bf-9ee4-784c5edf5de0 published by the Sun Newspaper here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6139256/toronto-van-attack-ken-lam-first-picture/   purports to be of the van running down people on its murderous route.



Image result for toronto van attack images
i.cbc.ca/1.4632302.1524525543!/fileImage/httpImage...

Flanders and Swann - Ill Wind - Mozart Horn Concerto

Tuesday, 24 April 2018

Pigeons finally coming home to roost? Referring potential criminals!


https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/barbara-bush-funeral-four-presidents-four-first-ladies.jpg

See: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/04/18/congress-sends-criminal-referral-to-sessions-wray-and-prosecutor-huber/comment-page-4/

Image result for jeff comey images
CNBC.com


Eleven (yes 11!) Congressmen have signed a letter of referral to the American Attorney General, Jeff Sessions; the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray; and to the Utah State Attorney, John Huber, referring the following for investigation:

Image result for jeff comey images
International Business Times
Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2017

1. Former FBI Director, James Comey, for failure to properly investigate Hillary Clinton's misuse of classified information when she was Secretary of State, insofar he came to decisions not to proceed before he had interviewed Clinton and others in the investigation.

Further for sharing "secret" and "classified" material with a reporter and others, intended to 'create a paper trail' in relation to President Donald Trump and being involved with a Steele document implicating the President in Russian events that was later shown to be largely fraudulent.

Image result for hillary clinton images
Hillary Clinton photo via Getty Images

2.  Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton for involvement in a process that allowed a National Democrat Party (NDP) lawyer to pay Washington firm Fusion GPS and disguising them, to initiate investigations that led to the 'Steele Dossier'. (This could be the earnest of much more and worse)

Image result for loretta lynch images
Loretta Lynch

3.  Former Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, for trying to silence with threats an FBI informant on the potentially illegal 'Uranium One Deal' involving the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

Image result for andrew mccabe images
Business Insider
Andrew McCabe

4. Former Acting Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, for reportedly "lacking candour on multiple occasions, including under oath" and for leaking confirmation of a Clinton Foundation investigation.


Image result for lisa page and peter strzok
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lisa+page+and+peter+strzok&rlz=1C1ARAB_enGB463GB464&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigxInJ4tPaAhWQyaQKHfgWARYQsAQISg&biw=1280&bih=893#imgrc=JIh9_eUZWr3n0M:

5.  FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Counsel, Lisa Page, for interfering with the wording of investigative reports to 'water down' reference to President Obama and another 'senior official' in involvement with Mrs Clinton's compromise of high level communications.

Image result for sally yates images
Sally Yates. CNN.com

6.  All Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI personnel including in addition to the above, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General, Dana Boente regarding the treatment of  false and/or unverified information from the Steele Dossier to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as part of the Carter Page Warrant application.

Image result for Dana Boente images
NBC News
Dana Boente listens during a county sheriff listening session with U.S. President Donald Trump, not pictured, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House



The full letter of referral is here:

https://desantis.house.gov/_cache/files/8/0/8002ca75-52fc-4995-b87e-43584da268db/472EBC7D8F55C0F9E830D37CF96376A2.final-criminal-referral.pdf

Monday, 23 April 2018

The intractable problem that is Israel.

Image result for israel flag images
"The combination of blue and white as the colors of the Jewish flag was derived from an 1860 poem, “Judah’s Colors,” by Austrian Ludwig August Frankl, which explained that the blue symbolized “the splendors of the firmament,” and the white represented “the radiance of the priesthood.” The blue stripes on the Zionist flag were also inspired by the stripes on the tallit (prayer shawl). They provided “religious and ritual symbolism of Jewish life guided by precepts of the Torah, while the Star of David reflected the unity of the Jewish people.”" From: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/israeli-flag/


The Israeli position has never been neutral or honest. From the outset it was aggressive, acquisitive and discriminatory.

Never content with the original boundaries, from the al-Nakba ("the Catastrophe") as Palestinians refer to it.  It has always aimed to expand to a 'Greater Israel' set between the Tigress and the Nile, which its modern flag indicatively denotes.

To do so it has used terrorism consistently from the King David Hotel to the Twin Towers; expulsion and a refusal to repatriate; military superiority in battles; domestic repression and injustice; and a blatant programme of settlement, land theft, economic and social strangulation, to make life as difficult and uncomfortable for the indigenous people, who possess a greater legal right to live where they do than the largely foreign newcomers.

As such it is just a modern example of classic imperialism, constructed on a very dubious claim that has been in abeyance for two millennium. Britain the great imperial power of the 19th Century is deeply implicated in both the theory and practice of the current situation and uncomfortably so.

Where would we be if the whole world sought to re-establish borders and populations based on AD 70? For a start over 300 million Americans would need to return to where they came from!

Perhaps this is a factor in the fawning and irrational support America has afforded this nascent, but deeply flawed state, which from the late 1970's has been taken over by un-apologetic professional terrorists. The results are today obvious to everyone: children being removed from their beds at night by heavily armed soldiers; authorisation to shoot dead and injure unarmed demonstrators with live rounds; fences and 'Berlin' walls entrench political apartheid; badly injured children refused medical attention; assassination and agitation abroad.

Imagine what political capital the West would make of this if it had been Russia doing it? Remember that the West went to war to so say defeat this sort of tyranny in Germany, yet is largely silent and impotent now Israel does the self-same thing!

The League of Nations collapsed largely because it failed to respond effectively to Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia. Israel is now the acid test of the United Nations, inexcusably neutered by the United States, owing to a disproportionately influential Jewish lobby and fundamentalist Christian Right. Both of these groups are obsessed with a prophetic but different Messianic vision, of which a Jewish Israel is an essential prerequisite.

In reality this just the age-old phenomenon of a human lust for power and domination; an hegemonic exercise in which all human values and empathy is blown to the wind. Men become monsters and no suffering is too great to achieve the desired end by those with the bombs and bullets.

Meanwhile the whole world stands aside as if nothing evil has happened or is happening. That is where we all share part responsibility as elsewhere we eat and drink and party our short lives away.

Sunday, 22 April 2018


Why Do Russian Journalists Keep Falling from Buildings?




Chatillon Sur Chalaronne Market New 202 Best Design Design Images On Pinterest Design Stage Design Set

ArtistJan Matejko
Year1862
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions120 cm × 88 cm (47 in × 35 in)
LocationWarsaw National MuseumWarsaw

Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk) is a painting by Jan Matejkofinished in 1862.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sta%C5%84czyk_(painting)
Stańczyk (c. 1480–1560) (Polish pronunciation: [ˈstaɲt͡ʂɨk]) was the most famous court jester in Polish history. He was employed by three Polish kings: AlexanderSigismund the Old and Sigismund Augustus.

Stańczyk, the male figure depicted in the painting, was the court jester when Poland was at the height of its political, economic and cultural power during the era of the Renaissance in Poland, during the reign of King Sigismund I the Old (reigned 1506–1548).[1][2] He was a popular figure; besides his fame as a jester he has been described as an eloquent, witty, and intelligent man, using satire to comment on the nation's past, present, and future.[1][2] Unlike jesters of other European courts, Stańczyk has always been considered as much more than a mere entertainer.[3] Stańczyk's fame and legend were strong in his own time and enjoyed a resurgence in the 19th century, and he remains well-known to this day

He is remembered as a man of great intelligence and a political philosopher gifted with formidable insight into Poland's current and future situation. He used his job to criticize and warn his contemporaries by the use of satire. His witty jokes often pertained to current political or court matters. Stańczyk's remarks and jokes were preserved by numerous contemporary writers and historians, including Łukasz GórnickiJan KochanowskiMarcin Kromer, and Mikołaj Rej who praised him for fighting hypocrisy in the name of truth. Some sources even go as far as to call him a "personal friend to Marcin Kromer, to the dislike of the bishops".


From: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling

April 21, 2018   Scott Simon



Russian journalist Maxim Borodin, who died from a fall from a fifth-floor balcony, had written about crime and political corruption the local Novy Den website.
Novy Den/AP

Maybe Maxim Borodin was depressed in ways his friends just didn't recognize and threw himself off of his fifth-floor balcony this week in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Maxim Borodin was 32 and a reporter for the local Novy Den website, for which he had done tough stories about crime and political corruption, including Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch indicted by the United States for running the "troll factory" that helped Russia try to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Maxim Borodin wasn't just reporting on the latest craze in spa treatments.
Reporters for the website say there were no signs of a struggle in his apartment. But he had been previously threatened for his stories, and Paulina Rumyantseva, his editor, told CNN, "As Maxim had big plans for his personal life and career, there is nothing to support a verdict of suicide."
Journalism is a dangerous trade in Russia.

Dozens of Russian journalists have been murdered since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Glasnost Defense Foundation. They weren't covering shooting wars or riots but powerful Russian institutions. A surprising number have implausibly fallen or slipped to their deaths.
In March 2007, Ivan Safronov, who was investigating the sale of Russian arms to Iran and Syria, died after falling from a fifth-floor window. It was ruled a suicide.
In November 2009, independent broadcaster Olga Kotovskaya fell to her death from a 14th-floor window. She had been battling for control of her station with a member of the government. Her death was also ruled a suicide.
In February 2012, Victor Aphanasenko, editor of a newspaper that had been investigating paramilitary raids in southern Russia, died after slipping in his home.
In November 2015, Mikhail Lesin, who was often described as President Vladimir Putin's state media czar but who had fallen out of favor with him, was found dead after a fall in his hotel room in Washington, D.C. The FBI says he fell from extreme drinking and had "blunt force trauma to the head" and injuries to his neck, arms, legs and torso. That must have been some fall.
In March 2017, Nikolai Gorokhov, the lawyer for Sergei Magnitsky, who was the source of reporting on Russia's largest tax fraud, fell from a fourth-story window while trying to move a bathtub. Russian authorities made that explanation with a straight face.
Their names are on a roll of honor with almost 30 more dauntless Russian reporters. Let us hope brave Russian journalists stay away from windows.