Kuznetsov's defender: authorities persecute best Russian advocates

The investigation materials in relation to Boris Kuznetsov, advocate of ex-senator from Kalmykia Levon Chakhmakhchyan, have been declared to be a state secret, Victor Parshutkin, defender of Kuznetsov who escaped from Russia, said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent:

"I saw the materials of the case and state with all my responsibility that there are no state secrets in them. These are invented secrets.

...The authorities' patience in relation to a bright lawyer, who was brilliantly defending his clients on the basis of the law, has boiled out, and they used this pretext to somehow 'hook' him up. We are pretty often seeing campaigns of this sort against lawyers."

In the opinion of law enforcement bodies, Boris Kuznetsov's guilt consists of disclosing the contents of the confidential FSB's material on tapping his client, member of the Council of Federation Levon Chakhmakhchyan, when the latter was still used senator's immunity. The 'disclosure' was made by sending a copy of the tapping material, photographed by Kuznetsov from Chakhmakhchyan's criminal case files, to the Constitutional Court, together with an application to recognize illegal the decision of the Supreme Court on tapping the senator's telephone conversations.

At present, as Mr Parshutkin asserts, the FSB's material that contained state secrets has been unclassified.