Kaluga - Moscow, February 9, 2000

Yesterday, on February 8, 2000, Kaluga Regional Court has examined the cassation appeal of Dmitrii Neverovskii, sentenced on November 25, 1999, to two years of imprisonment according to Art. 328.1 of the Russian Criminal Court ("evading military service').

The defence, represented by a famous Kaluga advocate David Slitinskii, the mother of Neverovskii Tat'yana Kotlyar and ARA Secretary Nikolai Khramov, insisted that the verdict was to be repealed for the lack of corpus delicti and the criminal case was to be closed. The Prosecutor has asked the Court to pass the case back for a further investigation, keeping Neverovskii under arrest. The Court decided to repeal the verdict of the Obninsk City Court under a very strange pretext: the right of the accused to defence was not properly guaranteed because neither Tat'yana Kotlyar nor Nikolai Khramov have a university law education, although Art. 47 of the Criminal Procedure Code does not establish any limitation in this field. At the same time the Court did not discuss the preventive punishment: Neverovskii was taken with his handcuffs on from the court room back to the prison.

In fact, during the examination of the case Kaluga Regional Court has found out serious limitations of glasnost' (transparency) and publicity of the trial: numerous journalists and representatives of public associations were not allowed to be present at the trial. They had to wait for the court decision in the street for more than six hours, while it was very cold. Before the beginning of the trial, from 9:00 till 10:00 a.m., the militants of the Radical Party and the ARA from Kaluga and Moscow have been holding a piquet of solidarity with Dmitrii Neverovskii and other Russian conscientious objectors.

Dmitrii Neverovskii was put in Kaluga Regional Investigation Prison IZ-37/1 on November 25, 1999. In his cell, planned for 8 people, there are 25 prisoners, so they have to sleep in turn. In this period Neverovskii was twice put into the punishment cell - that is a stone pocket without any heating - for 10 days and for 2 days. This gives us the grounds to speak about torturing the prisoner. Neverovskii and his mother, Tat'yana Kotlyar think that the prison administration treats him so badly in order to take vengeance on him for the criminal action brought by Neverovskii against the administration of the prison because they did not allow him to take part in the Parliament Elections on December 19, 1999.

On January 18, 2000, the European Parliament in its resolution on the Chechen has manifested its concern with the fate of Dmitrii Neverovskii who conscientiously objected to protest against the Chechen war.

For more information call:

(095) 208-1805, 208-4902, (902) 675-6379

(08439) 58666 - Tatyana Kotlyar

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Antimilitarist Radical Association

mailto:ara@glasnet.ru

http://www.ara.ru