Human rights activists: LDPR deputy Abeltsev has slandered Trepashkin

The public committee "In Defence of Political Prisoner Advocate Mikhail Trepashkin" has addressed the RF General Public Prosecutor with a demand to hold investigation into the fact of slander in relation to ex-FSB officer Mikhail Trepashkin; the slander materials were disseminated on behalf of Sergey Abeltsev, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Security. Mikhail Kriger, chairman of the public committee, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent about it.

Human rights activists have informed that the Internet portal of the Ural Institute of Applied Politics and Economy placed an interview of LDPR deputy Abeltsev, which, according to the web site data, had been first published in the newspaper "Argumenty i Fakty" (Arguments and Facts) on May 24, 2006, under the title "I Advised Him to Put a Pistol to His Head."

In the opinion of the public committee in defence of Mr Trepashkin, the following phrases in the text, attributed by the authors of the interview to deputy S. Abeltsev: "who betrayed all the principles and beliefs of a Russian officer" and "he sold for money secret information and was punished for that" contain "obviously false facts discrediting the honour and dignity of Mikhail Ivanovich Trepashkin":

"In our opinion, the second of the above phrases contains accusation against M. I. Trepashkin of committing grave crimes stipulated by Articles 275 and 276 of the RF Criminal Code (CC) (treason against the State and espionage) and thus falls within the attributes of Part 3, Article 129, of the RF CC."

Apart of the members of the public committee in defence of Mikhail Trepashkin, the appeal was signed by Lev Ponomaryov, executive director of the All-Russian Movement "For Human Rights," and Sergey Davidis, head of the legal group of the Anti-War Club and member of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial."