The criminal case against the former vice-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Oleg Grachev has been closed

On Thursday, the Magistrate Court of the Ostankino District of Moscow closed the criminal case against the former vice-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Oleg Grachev. Grachev was accused of slandering the ex-chairman of the regional court Fyodor Vyatkin. The court ruled that further consideration of the case was pointless due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Earlier, another person involved in the case, Chelyabinsk journalist Vladimir Filichkin, was granted amnesty.

Former vice-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Oleg Grachev
Photo: Vadim Akhmetov/ ura.ru

The criminal case against the former vice-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Oleg Grachev was discontinued due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution. This decision was made by the Magistrate Court of the Ostankino District of Moscow. Let us remind you that he was accused of organizing slander against the ex-chairman of the Chelyabinsk regional court Fyodor Vyatkin. Oleg Grachev and his lawyer made a motion to stop the prosecution, while the prosecution opposed it. Nevertheless, the judge granted the petition, deeming further proceedings pointless - the prosecution period ended on December 8.

A criminal case for libel against the former chairman of the regional court, Fyodor Vyatkin, was initiated in January last year in connection with the demonstration of the program “Man and the Law.” In one of the episodes of the program, a person who introduced himself as a former employee of the Organized Crime Control Department anonymously talked about how various emergencies allegedly happened to judges who oppose Fyodor Vyatkin. According to him, Vyatkin was allegedly involved in a local criminal group. According to investigators, deliberately false information about Fedor Vyatkin committing crimes was disseminated in order to undermine his reputation before the meeting of the High Qualification Board of Judges. Amid the scandal, the presidential personnel commission rejected Vyatkin’s application to extend the chairman’s powers for a six-year term. In April 2013, he resigned.

Initially, charges in the libel case were brought against the head of the regional department of the main control department of the Chelyabinsk regional administration, Alexey Karasev, who, according to investigators, participated in the filming of the story as an anonymous employee of the internal affairs bodies. The second defendant in the libel case was Vladimir Filichkin, who openly criticized Fyodor Vyatkin in the story. As part of the investigation into the case, FSB operatives conducted searches in the office and home of former vice-governor Oleg Grachev, in the buildings of the Granada Press Publishing House, and in the premises of the Makfa plant. Later, the status of Alexey Karasev was reclassified from an accused to a witness, and Oleg Grachev, on the contrary, from a witness became an accused. According to investigators, he was involved in the production and distribution of slanderous materials against representatives of the region's judicial authorities with the aim of discrediting them in the eyes of the public.

With the termination of the proceedings in the Grachev case, the libel case against Fyodor Vyatkin will end without identifying the perpetrators. His second defendant, Vladimir Filichkin, was amnestied in January as a participant in the fighting of the first Chechen campaign. Filichkin has repeatedly stated that the cases of slander against Judge Vyatkin are fabricated and ordered. At the same time, the very fact of dissemination of false information was recorded by the court. In September 2013, the Ostankino District Court of Moscow recognized the information about Fyodor Vyatkin from the plot of the “Man and the Law” program as unreliable and ordered Channel One to refute the widespread defamatory information. The Moscow City Court confirmed the correctness of the court of first instance.

Dmitry Komarov, Ekaterinburg

The time limit for slander has expired