Resumption of the trial of the Mari priest

On March 5, 2009, the Yoshkar-Ola City Court resumed regular hearings on the case of recognizing Vitaly Tanakov's brochure "The Priest Speaks" as extremist material.

The results of the psycholinguistic examination of the brochure, conducted by the Interregional Institute of Independent Forensic Examinations (MINSE) in Moscow, were considered. This, already the sixth examination in a row, showed the presence of signs of extremism in Tanakov's text.

The defense stated that the examination of the MINSE, carried out by philologists, cannot be evidence, since it is not a complex psycholinguistic examination and it did not include expert diplomas, a license of the institution and its charter. Tanakov's representatives petitioned for a new expert examination. The next meeting will take place on March 17.

In addition, in January 2009, the Central Police Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the city of Yoshkar-Ola refused to initiate a criminal case under Art. 130 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (insult) against Tanakov for lack of corpus delicti.

Inc. inf.

Sources

• Yoshkaroly police refused to FSB to open a criminal case against a Mari priest // Civitas.ru. 2009. January 13.