Alexander Goldfarb won a $25 million lawsuit against Channel One in the United States

A court in the American state of New York has awarded compensation in the amount of 25 million dollars in a lawsuit filed by a scientist, publicist and human rights activist Alexander Goldfarb against the Russian Channel One. Goldfarb announced this on Facebook. The court decision has not yet been published.

Alexander Goldfarb, a US citizen, was friends with Alexander Lytvynenko, who died in London in 2006 as a result of poisoning. He filed a defamation lawsuit against Russia’s First Channel and RT in New York federal court in 2018. The reason for the lawsuit was the stories of Russian TV channels in which Goldfarb was accused of murdering Lytvynenko.

Maryna Lytvynenko, the widow of a former FSB employee, joined the lawsuit. They collected money for the trial through crowdfunding (in his message on Facebook, Goldfarb expressed his gratitude to “everyone who donated to this hopeless enterprise”). Subsequently, Goldfarb reported to Radio Liberty that there was only one defendant left in the lawsuit – First Channel. In 2021, the court rejected Channel One’s request to reject the jurisdiction of the court in New York over the Russian defendants.

DW drew attention to a document published on the legal portal Casetext in January 2024. According to him, the defense of the First Channel stated in court that the defendant does not intend to appear in the future or otherwise defend against Goldfarb’s claims in the lawsuit, after which the case was ruled in absentia.

Alexander Goldfarb told The Breakfast Show program that the decision on the lawsuit allows, at the request of the plaintiffs, to seize the property of the First Channel in countries that recognize the decisions of American courts. At the same time, earlier he called the payment of compensation or refutation even in the case of winning in court unlikely, “since everyone understands who we are dealing with.” The main thing, according to the scientist, was to show that “the Russian authorities continue to kill people, and the Russian mass media lie about it to the whole world.”

There are no comments on the First channel yet.

• Former FSB officer Alexander Lytvynenko, who received asylum in Great Britain after he openly spoke out against Vladimir Putin, died in November 2006 in London from poisoning with radioactive polonium-210. The British investigation believes that the prisoner was allegedly added to his tea during a meeting with a former employee of the Russian special services (now a member of the State Duma) Andrey Lugov and entrepreneur Dmitry Kovtun. The European Court of Human Rights also found the Russian authorities responsible for Lytvynenko’s murder. Moscow denies its involvement in the murder of Lytvynenko, hinting at the possible involvement of the British special services. Goldfarb was not officially charged with murder in Russia.
• Alexander Goldfarb is a former Soviet and American scientist, biochemist and microbiologist, engaged in human rights activities. At the request of his friend Boris Berezovsky, he helped Lytvynenko to travel to Great Britain in 2000. He later collaborated with Lytvynenko, helped to publish his book “Lubyanskaya criminal group”, represented Lytvynenko’s interests in the last days of his life and after his death, authored a book about his murder. Goldfarb believes that Vladimir Putin is personally behind the murder of Lytvynenko.