On June 29, 2009, Yaroshenko, editor-in-chief of the
Rostov-on-Don newspaper Korruptsiya i
Prestupnost, died of head injuries he received in an April 30 attack, in
which he was found unconscious with a head wound in the entrance to his
apartment building early in the morning. He was hospitalized with skull and
brain trauma, underwent surgery, and spent five days in a coma, his deputy,
Sergei Sleptsov, told CPJ at the time.
Sleptsov told Russian news outlets in June that he believed
Yaroshenko was attacked in retaliation for the newspaper’s work. Korruptsiya i Prestupnost, an
independent paper whose title translates to “Corruption and Crime,” had
reported on corruption allegations involving
enforcement officials gave conflicting accounts of what happened to Yaroshenko
in April. Immediately after the journalist was hospitalized,
fistfight on a local street, Grigory Bochkaryov, a local correspondent for the
Russian service of Radio Free
Liberty, told CPJ. Bochkaryov said that police later said he had injured
himself by falling down the stairs in the entrance of his apartment building.