You're reading: Investigative journalist claims to be followed by SBU

Journalist Denys Bihus said on July 27 that employees of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, had been following the staff of his bihus.info investigative journalism project for a week.

The SBU did not respond to a request for comment.

A black Toyota Camry with an АА7305НХ license plate had been following the team’s camerawoman during the whole day on July 26, Bihus.info said.

Bihus said that on July 26 he identified one of the men following him, filmed the person and ran after him but could not catch him.

Before that, Bihus.info’s staff had been followed by a Toyota Camry АА8451АМ, a VW Touareg АА2962ОТ, a Daewoo Lanos АА6328АВ and an Opel АА9213АЕ, according to Bihus.info.

The camerawoman had been surveilled after she left a Kyiv suburb on July 23 where SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak lives.

“Surveillance over the editorial staff can’t be interpreted in any other way but as an attempt to impede our professional activities,” Bihus said on Facebook. “I’d like to ask the SBU why and on what grounds this surveillance is being carried out. What’s the purpose? What is it based on?”

Bihus said that the surveillance was a threat to “his colleagues’ security.”

Meanwhile, back in 2016, investigative reporter Pavel Sheremet was followed by SBU employee Ihor Ustymenko before Sheremet’s murder, according to an investigation by The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Sheremet was murdered on July 20, 2016 during a car explosion.