Journalists who accuse Deputy of Astrakhan Regional Duma of attacking them find inquiry superficial

In their comments on the fact that the Astrakhan Court has returned the criminal case on journalists' beating by the group headed by Rifkat Shabanov, Deputy of the Astrakhan Regional Duma, back to the Prosecutor's Office, the victims said that the investigation had failed to clear out a number of particulars.

Let us remind you that Vyacheslav Yaschenko, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, and Oleg Teplischev, a journalist of the Astrakhan-based newspaper "Zhitel" (Resident), were beaten, in the course of elections of the mayor of Astrakhan on October 11, 2009, by a group of people, commanded by Rifkat Shabanov, Deputy of the Astrakhan Regional Duma. Shabanov demanded that Vyacheslav Yaschenko deleted a video he had made at one of polling stations. During the incident the journalist managed to switch on his dictaphone. Then, the record of the incident was placed on the Internet. The journalists' beating case was investigated by Investigatory Department for the Astrakhan Region of the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of the Russian Federation. In June 2010, it arrived to the court.

"In late August, the case against citizen Shabanov was returned to the Prosecutor's Office under the pretext that the transcript of the audio record (made by the Yaschenko's dictaphone during the attack on them, - comment of the "Caucasian Knot") contained course lexicon. It was regarded as an insult of the court," Lutsiya Bekmandetova, assistant of Judge N. V. Kuzichkina from the 4th Sovietskiy District Judicial Section of Astrakhan, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent in a telephone conversation.

"I'm surprised with the decision of Judge Kuzichkina," Vyacheslav Yaschenko is bewildered. "A transcript should contain exactly everything that was said by Shabanov and his accomplices. Otherwise, how can we examine its content?"

Oleg Teplischev and Vyacheslav Yaschenko have expressed their discontent because of "low quality of the investigation" of their case.

"We don't agree that inspectors had referred the crime, committed by Rifkat Shabanov, Deputy of the Astrakhan Regional Duma, and the criminal grouping under his command, to Article 144, Part 1, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ('hindrance to lawful professional work of journalists by forcing them to disseminate or not to disseminate information')," said Mr Yaschenko. "The first attempt to investigate the case failed - the inspector tried to stop the case. Immediately, Shabanov accused Teplischev that he had himself attacked the Deputy and his gang (by the way, he has recently again filed a claim to the court). And only the political hunger strike of Oleg Teplischev and some Deputies of the Regional Duma, and interference of the Russian State Office of Public Prosecutor forced the ICPO for the Astrakhan Region to resume the inquiry."

According to Mr Teplischev, inspector D. P. Nikolayev failed to account a number of arguments of the prosecution in his work, in particular, that the case had been initiated only against Shabanov, not against a group of persons headed by Shabanov.

Also, according to both journalists, the inspector failed to interrogate the witnesses, who evidenced that this sort of behaviour of Shabanov and his group at polling stations was not the unique case of hampering the course of democratic elections. These materials, in the opinion of suffered journalists, were not studied in the course of investigation, "moreover, they were simply ignored by the inspector."