Court dismisses prosecutor's demand to find Kvachkov's article in Volgograd paper extremist

On December 4, the Voroshilov District Court of Volgograd considered a petition of the prosecutor's office asking to treat the appeal of Vladimir Kvachkov, a retired colonel of the so-called GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff), who is now kept at the Lefortovo Prison of the FSB under the charge of a putsch preparation, as an extremist material. The court dismissed the above petition of the prosecutor's office; however, the latter intends to challenge the ruling.

Nadezhda Kvachkova, the wife of the suspect, asserts that the authorship of the article in question in still under question. According to her version, her husband could not – by virtue of his current whereabouts – was physically unable to write the article published in the Volgograd newspaper.

She assumes that law enforcement bodies aim to find evidence that her husband was involved in extremist activities, which is not currently available, the "V1.ru" reports.

In 2005, the retired colonel of the GRU Vladimir Kvachkov was arrested under the charge of organizing an attempt on Anatoly Chubais, the then Director General of the RAO UES of Russia (United Energy System). After three years in prison, he was acquitted by jurymen; and in 2010 the Russia's Supreme Court upheld the acquittal.

However, Kvachkov was arrested again: in the opinion of investigators, Kvachkov and his supporters planned to capture the military units and weapon depots in a number of cities of the Central Federal District (CFD). The depots, which, according to the investigation, Kvachkov had planned to capture, store RPK machine guns, Kalashnikovs, RGS grenade launchers and other weapons.