A Russian man said Tuesday he was arrested shortly after he spoke to U.S. media outlets about his time working at a “troll factory.”
Marat Mindiyarov told The Moscow Times he was detained by police Sunday night for allegedly making a false phone call about a bomb in a nearby village. He was released after questioning, and denies all charges against him, he told the newspaper.
Mindiyarov spoke to The Washington Post and The Associated Press after the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations for allegedly attempting to interfere in the 2016 election.
The indictment claims the goal of the Russians was to support then-candidate Donald Trump, and damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mindiyarov said he worked for the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm based in St. Petersburg, Russia, where employees churned out propaganda on social media and fake news websites.
“Your first feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an industrial assembly line,” he told The Washington Post.
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Russian man arrested after speaking out about work at Russian "troll farm" https://t.co/fWpe4ii66j pic.twitter.com/nQRIS6ZX7a
— The Hill (@thehill) February 20, 2018
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