The Russian lawmaker at the center of the country’s biggest sexual harassment scandal, speaking candidly for the first time in an interview with Snob magazine, said there is an ongoing conspiracy against him, including the threat that the BBC will release an audio tape allegedly showing him harassing one of its journalists. State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky was publicly accused by three journalists this year of groping and lewd behavior, including a journalist from the BBC, leading some news outlets to boycott the lawmaker and the lower house of the parliament. An ethics commission dismissed the claims in March, despite the British broadcaster's claim there is an audiotape of the incident.

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“In my case harassment was a discrediting tactic. They tried to test in Russia a method that proved effective in America. It didn’t work,” Slutsky said in an interview with Russia’s Snob magazine Wednesday. The lawmaker said he was targeted because the alleged harasser “has to be someone fairly unconventional, flamboyant [...] who gets women’s attention and gives it to them.” Slutsky recounted a case where he was alleged to have groped BBC Russia correspondent Farida Rustamova last year, contending that he “had no physical contact with this lady’s groin or other body parts.” BBC Russia said it possesses an audio recording that details the encounter which it has yet to release. Slutsky said he suspects the unnamed “mastermind” of the campaign to release an alleged audiotape, whose existence he does not dispute, to renew the wave of accusations. “Perhaps it was compiled, spliced from various episodes [...] When interest is waning, you add more kindling.”

news Fourth Journalist Accuses Russian Deputy Slutsky of Sexual Harassment Read more