the French police could consider the attempt on the founder of Gulagu.net a prank

The French police could consider the alleged attempt on the founder of Gulagu.net Vladimir Osechkin a prank. The “Project” publication writes about it. The publication got acquainted with the document, which, according to Osechkin, represents the position of the investigation in this case.

Osechkin spoke about the attempted assassination in September 2022. As the human rights defender claimed, during dinner he noticed a red dot of a sight on the wall of his house in Biarritz in the south of France, after which several shots rang out. His “lightning reaction” and the killer’s mistakes helped him survive, he said. He did not provide evidence of what happened.

Agence France-Presse then reported that the prosecutor’s office of Bayonne, neighboring Biarritz, started an investigation into the incident, but did not find a single confirmation of the incident. After that, nothing was reported about the investigation of the case. The French prosecutor’s office and the court refused to respond to “Project” requests.

Osechkin showed the journalist a document representing, as he says, the position of the investigation on this case. The publication does not say what kind of document it is and what department it was prepared by. One of the fragments of the text he retold to the journalist as evidence that the neighbors also saw the laser sight. In fact, it said that the investigators believe that someone probably played a prank on the Russian, the publication claims.

The human rights defender says that the position of the prosecutor’s office, quoted by France-Presse, was expressed in order to “silence the media wave”. “Proekt” journalists were met in Biarritz by four of Osechkin’s guards. They refused to introduce themselves and answer questions. He assures that these are employees of the special unit of the French police protecting him.

Osechkin claimed that Hristo Grozev, an investigator of the Bellingcat project, warned him about the attempt in advance. Tot told “Project” that he did not do this. Grozev doubts the reality of the attempt.

• The Gulagu.net project publishes information about the state of the prison system in Russia. There, information about crimes in the Russian prison system was repeatedly published. Osechkin was the first to publish large-scale leaks of reports about torture and violence in Russian colonies and prisons. Several of them ended with court sentences for the FSIN employees who questioned the prisoners.