Press Release, 14.02.2014

Public Prosecutor of the Krasnodar Territory detected encroachment of the law in a criminal case for “slander against the judge” filed on YABLOKO’s Andrei Rudomakha. This is stated in an official response to Assistant Attorney General to an appeal by YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin who stated that the prosecution was not justified.

A criminal case was filed against Rudomakha under Article 298.1 of the Criminal Code “Slander Against the Judge” for a press release published on the party website.

The Public Prosecutor’s office determined that the version of Rudomakha’s innocence of the crime had not been considered.

It should be noted that YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin said that Rudomakha’s name appeared in the press release by mistake: the author of the words that became a cause for a legal action was Sergei Mitrokhin.

“After my statement, which was officially sent to the investigator, the case against Rudomakha has to be immediately closed,” Sergei Mitrokhin said.

Also, prosecutors acknowledged a excessively long period of investigation be a violation of the law. The case against Rudomakha was instituted in 2012, and a year after Rudomakha signed an undertaking not to leave the city of his residence. At present no investigative actions have been held.

Andrei Rudomakha believes that the investigation has been delayed deliberately so that to put restrictions on his activism.

Public Prosecutor General has ordered to the head of the Investigative Committee of the Krasnodar Territory to eliminate the violations.

However, Public Prosecutor General refused to admit that Rudomakha’s telephone conversations had been tapped by the Federal Security Service. But a statement about this had been made by policeman Goryunov during the search in the YABLOKO office in Krasnodar.

To make the version of the absence of any tapping look more trustworthy, the policeman was even held criminally liable for such a statement. The Prosecutor’s letter runs that the policeman “purposefully gave unreliable information”.