Ethics is lame

Prosecutors and lawyers in the Klebnikov case accused each other of sabotage

A new scandal was marked yesterday by the trial that began the day before in the Moscow City Court in the case of the murder of the editor-in-chief of the Russian version of the American Forbes magazine, Paul Klebnikov. The second court hearing ended, in fact, before it even began. At it, as expected, the prosecutor was supposed to present the first evidence in the case to the jury, but this did not happen. The judge, state prosecutor and defense attorneys again vigorously sorted out “procedural relations” yesterday. As a result, the jury with which this case is being considered did not enter the courtroom yesterday.

There are three people in the dock in the “Khlebnikov case” - Kazbek Dukuzov, Musa Vakhaev, Fail Sadretdinov. All three already declared their innocence at the first meeting. The prosecutor's office accuses Chechens Dukuzov and Vakhaev directly of carrying out the assassination attempt in June 2004 on the American journalist Paul Klebnikov. The third defendant - Moscow notary Fail Sadretdinov - formally has nothing to do with the murder of the journalist. In the case, he appears in another episode as the customer of the failed murder of a certain businessman, who, according to the investigation, was also supposed to be killed by Dukuzov and Vakhaev. It was the actions of Sadretdinov’s defenders that yesterday served as the reason for another skirmish, as a result of which the judge announced that she had submitted to the city bar association a complaint about violation of legal ethics by one of them. In this regard, a break was announced in the process until January 18.

Yesterday's hearings in the Moscow City Court began an hour late. The reason voiced by the judge presiding over the trial was that not all the defendants were delivered at the appointed time. Meanwhile, the defendants themselves, through their lawyers, denied this information, saying that they were delivered exactly on schedule. As soon as those gathered entered the hall, state prosecutor Dmitry Shokhin announced his petition. He asked the court to send information to the Chamber of Lawyers about violations of legal ethics standards by Sadretdinov's defender, Ruslan Koblev, and to suspend the process to give time to the president of the chamber to consider the submission. According to Mr. Shokhin, lawyer Koblev is deliberately disrupting the process with his statements. After listening to the prosecutor, the judge retired to the deliberation room for another hour. Having left, she heard the opinions of the parties regarding the prosecutor’s petition (the victims’ side supported the prosecution in this matter) and made a decision to send a representation against Mr. Koblev to the Moscow Bar Association, postponing the hearing until the fate of the lawyer was decided.

The prosecutor refrained from commenting at the end of the meeting. Mr. Koblev himself called what happened in the courtroom a “planned attack on the defense,” considering the actions of the judge and the prosecutor a reaction to his petition, submitted the day before through the special unit of the Moscow City Court. This document, according to Mr. Koblev, records gross violations of the law committed by the prosecutor and the judge presiding over the trial. Among other things, the petition refers to one juror who was challenged by the defense at the insistence of Sadretdinov, but nevertheless takes part in the trial. In essence, as lawyers say, this is a time bomb that can cancel any sentence.

Mr. Koblev commented on the judge’s submission to the chamber about his violation of legal ethics standards as follows: “This is a continuation of putting pressure on Sadretdinov’s defenders. It all started during the preliminary investigation, which lawyer Sursky already wrote about in a statement addressed to the Prosecutor General. And the current event is a reaction to the stated petition that the defense has recorded a number of gross violations of the law. The real goal of all this is to drag out the process and get principled advocates to abandon themselves. “I and Sadretdinov’s other lawyers act in accordance with the law and the code of legal ethics.” By the way, this is the second representation of a violation of legal ethics standards in Mr. Koblev’s case. The first was introduced by the prosecutor's office during the preliminary investigation, but then the board did not find any violations in his actions.

Eduard LOMOVTSEV