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Lawyer Boris Kuznetsov has fled the country in the face of possible charges of disclosing state secrets, a case he and his colleagues say may be politically motivated.

Kuznetsov said he left because his arrest would have made it difficult for him to defend his clients properly and that his work defending high-profile clients was behind the charges.

"None of this is happening by accident," Kuznetsov said Friday, speaking by mobile phone from an undisclosed location.

He added that he would continue to coordinate the defense for his current clients by telephone.

Kuznetsov refused to say how and when he left the country, citing concern for the safety of those who had assisted him.

Moscow's Tverskoi District Court ruled Wednesday that Kuznetsov had disclosed state secrets by submitting an appeal to the Constitutional Court over an Federal Security Service wiretap of his client, former Federation Council Senator Levon Chakhmakhchyan. The court ruling came at the request of the City Prosecutor's Office.

City Prosecutor's Office spokeswoman Valentina Titova refused to say Friday whether a criminal case against Kuznetsov had been initiated.

A Moscow City Court spokeswoman, who did not give her name, said such a case "apparently" had yet to be opened.


Colleagues at the firm Kuznetsov heads, Kuznetsov and Partners, said Friday that they had no information about Kuznetsov's whereabouts and had not been able to contact him for several days.

Beside Chakhmakhchyan, who is charged with accepting a $300,000 bribe as part of a sting operation, his clients have included Manana Aslamazian, head of the Educated Media Foundation, and Igor Sutyagin, a scientist sentenced by a jury to 15 years in prison after being convicted of high treason in 2004.

Kuznetsov also has represented the interests of the family of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in her apartment building in October.

"They want me out of a number of cases, including that representing the interests of Politkovskaya's family," Kuznetsov told Kasparov.ru, the web site of Garry Kasparov, a leader of opposition coalition The Other Russia.

Two high-profile lawyers said Friday that Kuznetsov had acted properly in defending his client.

"A lawyer is obliged to protect his defendants and to file appeals," said Mikhail Barshevsky, the government's representative to the Constitutional Court. "The Tverskoi District Court ruled incorrectly, and this shows that judges simply don't understand the lawyer's function."

Genry Reznik, who has defended numerous high-profile clients against government charges, said he thought Kuznetsov's fears of political prosecution were warranted, but that he could not see what dividends such a prosecution could deliver for the government or security agencies.

"If [Kuznetsov's case] is the result of a desire to make things difficult for the lawyer, then it does not show those in the Federal Security Service who started this in a good light," Reznik said. "This will be a total embarrassment in the eyes of the international community."

An FSB spokesman said Friday that the agency does not comment on "speculation."

Kuznetsov said he would consider seeking political asylum somewhere abroad if there were any threats to his family's safety and that he might seek redress at the European Court of Human Rights if he could not reach some kind of agreement with Russian justice officials, Kasparov.ru reported.

He added that he hoped that the situation could be sorted out without having to resort to either measure.

Kuznetsov's lawyers, Robert Zinovyev and Viktor Parshutkin, now have 10 days to study the Tverskoi District Court ruling and decide whether to appeal it in the Moscow City Court, Kuznetsov said.

If charged and convicted, Kuznetsov could face up to three years in prison. [1]Biophys 19:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Lawyer Boris Kuznetsov fled Russia after Moscow's Tverskoi District Court initiated a criminal case on Wednesday, charging him with the disclosure of state secrets. How could the lawyer have gained access to state secrets? The intelligence services and prosecutor's office believe that Kuznetsov violated the law by copying and distributing secret wiretap recordings of his client, former Federation Council Senator Levon Chakhmakhchyan.

Having copied the wiretap records, Kuznetsov sent a copy of the tapes by mail to the Constitutional Court. There, employees -- who had no security clearance -- were able to analyze the material in the tapes and make them available to journalists.

Kuznetsov and his defense team point to Article 7 of the law regarding state secrets: "Information regarding the violation of a citizen's rights and freedom shall not be regarded as classified." Nonetheless, the district court made the decision about the purported criminal nature of Kuznetsov's actions in two weeks. Moreover, even before the district court's decision, authorities demanded that Kuznetsov sign a statement that prohibited him from disclosing facts of the case. This means that the authorities deliberately intended to classify the information on the tapes.


"The Kuznetsov Affair" is a fairly typical case. But it also represents a significant development because law enforcement agencies have recently intensified their battle against high-profile lawyers. Kuznetsov is one of them. This is how Kuznetsov articulated his credo: "If the evidence of innocence is located in a pile of crap and my hands are tied, I will obtain the evidence with my teeth."

He fights to defend the rights of people whom the government has already predetermined to be guilty -- for example, the scientist Igor Sutyagin and the founder of The Educated Media Foundation, Manana Aslamazian. Kuznetsov also investigated sensitive cases that the government has been trying to forget -- for example, the reasons why the Kursk submarine sank in 2000, killing 118 sailors. In 2005, Kuznetsov published his findings in the book "It Sank: The Truth That Prosecutor General Ustinov Concealed About Kursk." He also filed with the European Court of Human Rights the complaints of family members of sailors who died in the Kursk accident.

As a rule, there were previous attempts to remove lawyers from sensitive cases or revoke their licenses under fabricated pretexts. This was exactly the situation with the lawyers defending Yukos and with Karina Moskalenko, who represented Russian plaintiffs against the government in Strasbourg.

After being confronted with the corporate solidarity of lawyers, the intelligence services have resorted to initiating seemingly absurd cases against them. But these cases have very sharp teeth and threaten lawyers with the real risk of serious punishment. Kuznetsov could receive up to four years in prison (up to seven years under aggravated conditions) and a three-year prohibition against practicing law.

The KGB took similar measures in the 1970s and 1980s against lawyers who defended dissidents. The battle against lawyers is counterproductive because it undermines the authority of the entire judicial system. This could very well mean that an even higher number of cases will be sent to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg by Russians claiming that they have been denied their right of legal defense at home.

Authorities should remember that Russian defendants, who have become victims of persecution as a result of clan struggles or the fight for the ownership of property, will turn to "kamikaze lawyers" such as Kuznetsov who are not afraid of fighting against the system. [2]Biophys 19:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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