Citizen journalist site scores over professionals

by Brian Bamford

BELLINGCAT, a website founded by the British citizen journalist Eliot Higgins, has just published its findings in its investigations into the Skripal poisoning case.  The collective Bellingcat, who worked with Russian news organisation The Insider, claim they have identified the second suspect involved as Alexander Mishkin, a doctor working for the Russian GRU intelligence service.

Along with another suspect, earlier identified by Bellingcat to be Anatoliy Chepiga, Mishkin travelled to the British town Salisbury in March 2018 and allegedly poisoned former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Skripal, who was a former Russian intelligence officer turned double agent, was poisined using the rare chemical nerve agent called Novichok.  After the poisoning, both Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia spent several weeks in a hospital, but both ultimately survived.

From the Russian regime's point of view it was a botched job.

It must be said that Russia has denied any involvement in the case and has claimed the two Russians were in Salisbury on a tourist trip anxious to see the sights of Salisbury town centre with its cathedral and clock tower. 

Once Bellingcat was launched in 2014, major ground was covered over the course of its first investigation, the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). Bellingcat concluded that the downing was initiated by the Russian military; this was later confirmed by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which found in a report dated 25 May 2018 that the downing of MH17 was initiated by the Russian military.

Following a Russia Today's interview with the suspects of the Sergei Skripal poisoning case, Bellingcat published the suspects’ passport data showing inconsistencies in the official story, and possible links to the Russian secret service.   Since then the Russian foreign ministry rejected the report stating that it believed Bellingcat had ties to western intelligence.  It noted Bellingcat's access to a Russian database not publicly available.

Bellingcat was founded in 2014 by British journalist Eliot Higgins, with the help of a crowd-funding campaign.  It's good news that a do-it-yourself outfit like this has triumphed over the institutional media.

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Free speech in the 'Land of Freedom'!

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Back in February, I happened to be watching the 'Russia Today' presenter, Abby Martin, on her RT show 'Breaking the Set'. She referred to the case of Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and anti-war campaigner, who had been hauled out of a meeting at George Washington University after staging a protest when Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, gave a speech about Internet freedom and the crackdown on free speech in Egypt. 

It seems that McGovern simply stood up at the meeting and turned his back on Clinton to display a message on his T-shirt. He was then dragged out of the meeting and can be heard saying: "This is America!" Although he only suffered minor injuries, he was later charged with 'disruptive conduct' (later dropped) and was then investigated about his personal and political activities and was then put on stop and search procedures.

Of course, that famous American writer, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), wouldn't have been surprised by any of this. He once said: "In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the prudence never to exercise either of them." So much for free speech in America.