The Insider, 16.12.2020

Deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg will send an appeal to the Investigative Committee demanding to open a criminal case into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. The initiator of this, MP Boris Vishnevsky, told The Insider that he was not so naive as to believe that a criminal case would be immediately filed, but in this situation it would be important to force the law enforcement agencies to explain and justify [for their position].

We applied to the authorities on this issue once, and all Yabloko deputies from regional parliaments applied. We all received runaround replies or rejections, and the runaround replies were quite formal. Our applications were all addressed to the Tomsk department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs [the city where Alexei Navalny was taken to hospital from the airplane], which at first said that as part of the investigation into Navalny’s poisoning, only the facts of his hospitalisation were being studied, and no final decision was made there.

Now we want to use a different provision of the Criminal Procedure Code – this is Article 144 Part 2, when the media reports on a crime. Report of a crime in the media makes mandatory for the public prosecutor or the head of the investigative body to instruct the public prosecutor or investigator to check on this crime statement. In this case, all these conditions were met, because many media outlets, both Russian and foreign, published this investigation, in which your publication played a key role. They are obliged to conduct this check and adopt a decision based on the results.

I was not born yesterday, and I do not cherish great illusions, but one must keep up with them [the authorities] in order to somehow force them to justify for their actions. If they refuse to open a criminal case, then let them explain why. Let them explain whether they checked these security personnel about whom it was written – whether they exist in reality, whether they were found, whether they were questioned and what did they say? They will have to somehow justify their refusal. I’ am not so naive as to think that they will immediately file a criminal case, but nevertheless they somehow have to explain and justify for their position.

When we sent the first appeal on the criminal case, six or seven deputies from different factions signed it. Maybe they would sign now too. Do you know who should have been the first to seek the initiation of a criminal case? These are the deputies from [the ruling] United Russia [party]. If all this is not true, then the check should show it. They should be the first to be interested in establishing the truth. None of them, of course, will sign this statement. Let us see how many signatures there will be now. I understand that in this case a legal-and-political decision will be made, but, nevertheless, it is necessary not only to force them to adopt lawful decisions, but make it maximum difficult for them to adopt unlawful decisions.

Article by Yury Knyazev

Source: The Insider