Translated material
Acquitted
Editor-in-Chief of Khimkinskaya Pravda Mikhail Beketov was found not guilty
The city court of Khimki near Moscow on Friday acquitted the editor-in-chief of the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper, Mikhail Beketov, whom a magistrate court a month ago found guilty of slandering the mayor of the city, Vladimir Strelchenko. The appeal commission, having reviewed the case, simply did not find any corpus delicti in it.This decision was made on the basis of the same materials that formed the basis of the previous conviction. The court only interpreted them differently. If in the first verdict it was stated that, having accused Mr. Strelchenko of organizing “political terror” in the city, the journalist disseminated deliberately false information, now it is recognized that the prosecution failed to prove this.
Mikhail Beketov’s associates and human rights activists called the acquittal in his case “fair” and “justice.” For the prosecution and Mr. Strelchenko himself, apparently, he came as a surprise - there have been no comments from them yet.
A criminal case for slander against Mikhail Beketov was opened in September 2007. The reason for this was the journalist’s statement that, in his opinion, it was Mr. Strelchenko who was behind the constant threats against him. Since 2006, Mr. Beketov, who was engaged in business, began publishing the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper with his personal funds, which harshly criticized the city authorities. In particular, this publication was one of the first to protest against the then planned deforestation of the Khimki forest. Soon, Mr. Beketov began to receive threats; in the spring of 2007, unknown persons killed his dog, defiantly placing its corpse in front of the journalist’s porch, and then someone burned his car.
The journalist had previously expressed the opinion that local officials who were not happy with his criticism could be behind the threats, and after the last incident, in one of his television interviews, he stated bluntly: “I believe that this is political terrorism, in which Vladimir Strelchenko was the customer, and the executor was - unknown persons." Because of these words, the head of Khimki turned to the police, demanding that a criminal case be opened for libel.
The trial in one of the Khimki magistrates' courts began in February 2008 and lasted until November 13, when unknown persons brutally beat Mr. Beketov with baseball bats near his home. The journalist received severe injuries; in addition, he lay in the cold for several hours until he was found. As a result, doctors had to amputate his lower leg and fingers on one of his hands. In addition, Mr. Beketov has undergone several complex brain surgeries and has still not recovered his speech function.
He was released from hospital this summer and the libel trial resumed in October. Moreover, due to a change of judge, the consideration began anew. Mr. Beketov himself was present at the retrial several times (in a wheelchair and accompanied by doctors), but since he cannot speak, he did not speak, and the court was guided by his previous testimony. Previously, the journalist denied the charge of libel, saying that in the ill-fated television interview he expressed only his personal opinion, which is not prohibited by law. Mr. Beketov’s defense, in addition, tried to draw the court’s attention to the fact that it is not yet possible to judge how false the journalist’s statement was. It is still unknown who was actually behind the threats and attacks against him. Although criminal cases were initiated based on these facts, they were never solved.
Nevertheless, on November 10, the magistrate court found Mr. Beketov guilty, deciding that when he spoke of Mr. Strelchenko as the customer of “political terrorism,” he realized that he was disseminating false information. This conclusion was made logically based on the fact that, as the court noted, the defendant was unable to provide information that he and Mr. Strelchenko were political opponents or had other conflicts.
This verdict caused a storm of indignation not only from Mr. Beketov's associates and human rights activists, but also from many lawyers. The very fact of a guilty verdict against a person who could not say anything in his own defense seemed strange to many. All this looked especially egregious against the backdrop of two more similar crimes that occurred just in those days. In Moscow, Oleg Kashin, a journalist from the Kommersant publishing house, was brutally beaten, and in the same Khimki, environmentalist Konstantin Fetisov. Both, like Mr. Beketov, actively opposed the deforestation of the Khimki forest. As a result, even the Union of Journalists of Russia, which has always supported Mr. Beketov, asked him not to appeal the court’s decision: “Let it remain that way as a symbol of justice in Khimki style.”
Nevertheless, his lawyers filed an appeal with the Khimki City Court, insisting on Mr. Beketov’s acquittal, promising to go through all the authorities, including the European Court of Human Rights. But the decision of the second instance turned out to be both quick and unexpected. Having considered the materials that the magistrate’s court also studied (the prosecution and defense did not present new arguments and documents when appealing), the appeal commission completely acquitted Mr. Beketov, canceling the previous verdict. This time the court came to the conclusion that the prosecution could not prove the fact that for the journalist the words he said about Mr. Strelchenko were deliberately false. And, accordingly, there was simply no corpus delicti in his actions. At the same time, the decision noted that the conclusions of the magistrate were “suggestive in nature” and did not correspond to the actual circumstances of the case.
“It turns out that there are still heroic judges in Khimki,” Mr. Beketov’s lawyer, Andrei Stolbunov, told news agencies. “The law has triumphed over concepts.” “Apparently, this means that the court made a just decision, which in the current situation with the judicial system, in general, is no longer a simple, but a joyful event,” stated in turn the head of the Memorial human rights center Oleg Orlov .
On Friday, another gift awaited Mr. Beketov - the international organization Reporters Without Borders announced that he had been awarded the Press Freedom Award. “The decisive factors for this decision of the jury were the special courage in investigative journalism, the democratic significance of the articles, as well as the personal fate of Mikhail Beketov,” said Rubina Mehring, president of the Austrian branch of the organization.