Ex-Speaker of Astrakhan City Duma prepares complaint to ECtHR against his sentence for slander

Evgeniy Dunaev, former chairman of the City Duma, who was convicted by the Astrakhan Court on charges of defamation during his performances on TV with criticism of Astrakhan authorities, intends to file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), because he believes his verdict to be unfair. Mr Dunaev himself told about it to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

On November 13, 2010, the Magistrate Court of the Kirov District found Dunaev guilty of slandering the Astrakhan Mayor Sergey Bozhenov. The verdict ran that in 2008-2009 Dunaev spoke out on air of one of Astrakhan-based TV channels "knowingly false information about Bozhenov's activities with the aim to undermine his business and public reputation."

On January 19, the Judicial Board on Criminal Cases of the Astrakhan Regional Court upheld the verdict; and it came into force. Now Dunaev must pay a fine of 80,000 roubles in favour of the state. Besides, he must pay 50,000 roubles to the Mayor of Astrakhan in compensation for moral harm caused to him. The Mayor decided to transfer the money to boarding school No. 2 for orphans and children with disabilities left without parental care.

As stated by Dunaev, he sounded on the air the officially confirmed facts.

"For the whole year I spoke on TV about the facts that people discuss in their kitchens, in trolleybuses and trams; the programme's name was 'In Fact' - now it is closed. Within a year there were 60 programmes with my participation. Out of them, the city administration took five programmes as the basis for instituting criminal proceedings; the process lasted for 2 years before the case went to the court," said the source.

He notes that on TV he spoke about demolition of greeneries, destruction of historical monuments, long waiting lists to kindergartens and of fire victims; that 46,000 entrepreneurs were officially registered in 2004, but with the advent of the new city authorities the number dropped to 26,000. "This is the official data; how it turned out to be slander - I don't understand," said Evgeniy Dunaev.

"I spoke about the large number of criminal cases initiated against the officials of the city administration; now there about 30 of them: extortions, bribery, and up to the crime, committed by the director of the Municipal Unitary Enterprise (MUE) 'Russian Fight', appointed to the post by Mayor of Astrakhan Bozhenov, drove with his people onto the road and robbed an armoured cash-collection car with use of service firearms, causing wounds; now they are all serving their sentences in prisons," says Dunaev.

According to his story, for a long time the Investigatory Committee did not initiate the case, because, in his opinion, there was no corpus delicti and no motive of the crime. "But after the wife of the Mayor of Astrakhan Olga Bozhenova sold, in the capacity of an individual, a building to the Investigatory Committee of the Astrakhan Region for 400 million, about what I have a copy of the contract at my disposal with all the details, the situation has changed," said Evgeniy Dunaev.

"In Astrakhan, there are a few persons, who openly talk about it: Oleg Shein, Oleg Teplischev, Igor Negerev, Alexander Tokarev, Elena Grebenyuk; and we are persecuted for it," said Dunaev.

"Three high-ranking Generals came from Moscow; they checked my criminal case; and it turned out that it may be re-qualified from part 3 into part 2, or even into part 1. On the other hand, I could have been convicted and imprisoned under part 3. That is, after intervention of senior police officials from Moscow, I was re-qualified from part 3 to part 2 of the 'slander' Article 129 (punishment under part 3 of this Article assumes the maximum penalty - imprisonment for up to three years, - note of the "Caucasian Knot")," said Evgeniy Dunaev.

According to his story, being almost completely disillusioned of a chance to achieve justice in Russia, he plans in the near future to apply to the ECtHR.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent failed to receive any comments from the administration of Astrakhan. The inquiry sent to the administration with indication of the contact information remained unanswered.