Nalchik starts hearing on lawsuit of KBR resident, announced by MIA as suicide bomber

On February 4, the Nalchik City Court chaired by Judge Aslanbek Zhigunova held the first hearing on the lawsuit of Fuza Makhotlova, a resident of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), lodged against to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of the KBR on protection of her honour, dignity and business reputation and compensation of moral damage on the fact of declaring her a suicide bomber.

Makhotlova went to court in October 2012. Her complaint stated that in December 2011 the Centre to Counteract Extremism (Centre E) spread an orientation message on her with a photo copied from her passport.

According to her story, as a result she experienced a severe stress and her health had deteriorated. All of her business partners, and Makhotlova was a small businesswoman, refused to cooperate with her.

During the hearing, the Lieutenant Colonel of Internal Service Farida Shabatukova, a representative of the MIA of the KBR and a legal adviser of the legal department, filed a motion to prosecute as a defendant the Chief Department of the Russia's MIA for the Southern Federal District (SFD), "since the above orientation message originated from the above Department of the MIA for the SFD."

This motion was opposed both by the claimant herself and her advocate Boris Marshenov. Foza Makhotlova said that the orientation message arrived from the Chief Department in the form as it was disseminated; but she is convinced that she had been put on the wanted list by the MIA of the KBR.

"If they had some suspicions, they could detain me; and in that case I would not have anything against them," said the claimant.

Her advocates have moved a motion asking to appoint a forensic medical examination to establish the cause-and-effect relationship of the orientation message with her disease. The court has granted the motion.