Russian journalist Babchenko, reported dead yesterday, is alive - was part of a sting operation

[fleur-de-lisa]

Andrew Roth @Andrew__Roth

Arkady Babchenko is alive and giving a press conference. Faking his death was part of a special operation to catch the people who had threatened his life.

Link to tweet

[Oneironaut]

1. This world keeps getting weirder every day!

[samnsara]

2. ok is he dead or isnt he dead?

[fleur-de-lisa]

9. Alive. He gave a news conference today, in person.

[samnsara]

3. yikes even his wife thought he was dead.

[Skraxx]

4. Holy Crap!

Wow!

[Sanity Claws]

5. huh?

How would faking a death fit into a sting operation?

[califootman]

7. Perhaps authorities were posing as the hit men...

...and they needed to fake the death in order to get some additional information (like from a completed financial transaction, maybe) on the suspects?

Just a guess.

[Sanity Claws]

8. That makes sense

However, it does imply that hitmen get paid promptly. Maybe that is the way it is. After all, who would piss off a hit man who has already shown he has no problems with killing.

[forgotmylogin]

10. This is spitballing on my part...I think it triggers cooperation from "falsely" accused suspects.

If there was a contract on the reporter and authorities had an idea who is planning it, staging the death and listing the would-be assassin as a suspect is a good way to encourage the suspect to spill everything since he has to prove even though he was indeed contracted for murder, he did not actually do the deed.

I saw a Discovery ID show about a privileged young thing who hired someone to kill her husband. Turns out the assassin was undercover and they had the video of her in the car making the deal. They were able to document her pretending to freak out when they notified her of his "death", hours of her lying her face off making all sorts of claims about her husband and who was "out to get him" that weren't true, then confront her with her assassin "This is Officer So-and-So" whom she claims to never have met (roll video) then they even brought in her actual alive husband after she had smeared him seven ways to Sunday thinking she couldn't be refuted... which was truly hilarious schadenfreude.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread fleur-de-lisa