By Travis Fedschun, Fox News
The fierce anti-Kremlin Russian journalist who was reported dead in Ukraine’s capital showed up to a news conference on Wednesday very much alive, as authorities revealed it was all part of a foiled murder plot against him.
Vasily Gritsak, the head of the Ukrainian Security Service, said at a news conference that the agency faked Arkady Babchenko’s death to catch those who were trying to kill him.
Babchenko showed up at Gritsak’s news conference on to gasps from the press, and thanked everyone who was mourning his death.
“I’m still alive,” he said.
Before ushering Babchenko into the room, Gritsak said investigators had identified a Ukrainian citizen who had been recruited and paid $40,000 by the Russian security service to organize and carry out the killing. The unidentified Ukrainian man in turn hired an acquaintance who had fought in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine as the gunman.
The journalist was leaving his apartment on Tuesday to go out to buy bread when he was reportedly shot several times in the staircase of his building in Kiev, Ukrainian politician Anton Gerashchenko said in a Facebook post. His wife found him bleeding and called an ambulance, but authorities claimed he died on his way to the hospital.
Babchenko did not tell his wife that the murder had been staged, according to Reuters. Neither he nor Gritsak provided details of how they staged Babchenko’s injuries or made his wife believe he was dead.
“I’m sorry, but there was no other way of doing it,” he said Wednesday. “Separately, I want to apologize to my wife for the hell that she has been through.”
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