Brinikh’s defence asks to deprive Teuchezh District administration of victim party status

The today’s session of the trial taking place at the Maikop City Court completed the questioning of prosecution witnesses. The ecologist’s defence filed a motion demanding to withdraw the Teuchezh District administration out of the trial, having stated that the administration cannot put forward a demand to compensate moral harm on behalf of district residents.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Valery Brinikh had been accused of distributing some extremist material on the Internet, namely, his article "The Silence of the Lambs" about the problems of environment pollution in Adygea by a local swine-growing farm was considered to be such an extremist material.

The June 17 court session interrogated the last two prosecution witnesses – Potapov, the editor-in-chief of the website "ZaKrasnodar!", and Isaenko, a system administrator, said Brinikh.

The court also held the procedure of taking a sample of signature of witness Mugdin Guchetl, a resident of the aul (village) Gabukai for its compliance with the one in the printed protocol of his interrogation, conducted by the investigator.

The defence disputes the authenticity of signatures and the protocol itself, stating that it was forged; it is stated in the protocol, on behalf of the witness, the presence in the text of the above article of statements inciting the interethnic and inter-religious hatred.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.