MOSCOW - Russia's top investigator denied Thursday that he had threatened to kill an investigative reporter over a story that lambasted his agency, but apologized for an "emotional outburst" with the journalist.
Novaya Gazeta, Russia's leading investigative publication, claimed Wednesday that the Investigative Committee chief, Gen. Col. Alexander Bastrykin, took reporter Sergei Sokolov to a forest outside Moscow where he threatened to kill him and then joked that he would lead the investigation into his death.
The alleged June 4 incident followed Sokolov's story that accused Bastrykin's agency of failing to punish the perpetrator of a 2010 killing of 12 people, including four children, by a gang in southern Russia.
