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YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin continues to insist that
"Governor of the Moscow region Boris Gromov bears the
political responsibility for everything happening in the Moscow
region, including the situation with crime, which allows [criminals]
to attempt lives of public figures."
Obeying the decision of the court Mitrokhin refuted the following
information: "We have the reason to believe that the
administration of the Khimki district and personally head
of the administration Strelchenko supported by Governor Gromov
are behind this crime (beating of Editor-in-Chief of the Khimki
Pravda paper Mikhail Beketov and leaving him die in the frost.
Today Beketov is handicapped. - Press Service). The Court
ruled out that this information was not true and defamatory
for Boris Gromov.
"It is very typical that Boris Gromov in his lawsuit
did not contest the allegation of involvement of the head
of the Khimki district administration in the attack against
[Beketov], which indirectly confirmed the truth of my statement,"
Mitrokhin said.
In addition, the activists of the Movement in the Defence
of the Khimki Forest had notified Mitrokhin earlier that Mikhail
Beketov received repeated threats from the representatives
of the Khimki administration. In particular, Beketov had received
such a threat from deputy head of the Khimki administration
Alexei Valov during one of the rallies.
Governor of the Moscow region Boris Gromov
applied to court stating that Mitrokhin’s speech at rally
on November 16, 2009, on the anniversary of the attack against
Beketov. Mitrokhin’s speech appeared at YouTube and was also
published at YABLOKO’s web-site.
The Governor of the Moscow region demanded compensation of
moral damages amounting to RUR 500,000, however, the court
cut this amount to RUR 20,000 (approx. USD 670).
See also:
Freedom
of Speech
Human
Rights
Governor
Gromov motions a libel suit against Sergei Mitrokhin. Press
Release. February 1, 2010
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