Press release, 05.11.2014

A defamatory video on YABLOKO ‘s deputy of the Pskov region Legislative Assembly Lev Shlosberg made by Alexandr Bilibov on September 17, 2014, was deleted from the website of the Vesti programme, Rossiya 1 TV channel.

After the release of the video YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin stated that “the piece which can be called nothing but a political order didn’t say a word about the most popular and actually the only version of the reason for the attack on Shlosberg which was the revenge for publications and speeches on the use of regular military units of the Russian Armed Forces in military operations in the territory of Ukraine; public investigation of the reasons and circumstances of the death of the Pskov paratroopers which has found resonance within Russian and the world”.

Sergei Mitrokhin reminded that “on September 16 Lev Shlosberg sent an official inquiry of a deputy to Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky demanding to investigate all the circumstances of the death of the Pskov militants and included the list of the dead whose death has been proved by many witnesses”.

The respond from Russia’s authorities was not late in arriving and was made in the worst tradition of Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda. The piece within the “Vesti” programme discredited the investigation which is being held or supposedly being held in connection with the attack on Lev Shlosberg, show head of the Pskov investigative department of internal affairs in anecdotic light and in fact put public pressure on the investigation by calling the crime strictly domestic. As a matter of fact the piece has once again proved that Shlosberg’s stance and the information on the reasons for the death of Russia’s militants that he and other journalists had published are true and correct”, emphasized YABLOKO leader.

Lev Shlosberg forwarded an appeal to the Moscow branch of the Chief Department of Internal Affairs on bringing a criminal case under the Article 128.1 on libel against the director of the video Alexandr Bilibov. According to Lev Shlosberg, Alexandr Bilibov was aware of the false and shameful character of the information he was spreading and wanted to bring it to public, which he actually did within the Vesti programme on September 17, 2014.

Lev Shlosberg demanded from the Moscow branch of the Chief Department of Internal Affairs to bring a criminal case over the release of the defamatory video by Alexandr Bilibov within the Vesti programme, Rossiya 1 TV channel, on September 17, 2014, to prove the nature of the crime, find all those involved in the crime and bring them to responsibility in accordance with the law.

The Moscow branch of the Chief Department of Internal Affairs have started the inquiry on the appeal. The investigation is taking place in Moscow and Pskov.

The link to the full text of Lev Shlosberg’s appeal to the Moscow branch of the Chief Department of Internal Affairs