24 JUNE 2009 COULD DEFEND “ESPRIT DE CORPS” BY LIBEL AFTER THE DEATH?

Justice. Andrew Mochalin in the courtroom. June 01, 200

We would remind that the Criminal Court of Leninsky district of Saransk city sentenced Oleg Mochalin for 6 years of imprisonment in colony of general regime instead of the previous 120 hours community service for causing the death of 23-year-old Victor Vdovin. The prisoner was taken into custody in the courtroom. After a new sentence many times pro-government mass-media have repeatedly returned to the theme of «15 days for the murder».
Most of the publications are sponsored clearly, because they contain false information, discrediting man, who was killed by criminal. Deprived of all morality "reporters" stated openly in the articles that allegedly Victor Vdovin was a criminal, alky, and killed because of the outraged honor of Andrew Mochalin sister.  
These allegations are libel. We are surprising the confidence of the authors in their impunity for publishing false information about the killed man.
The mother of murder victim Tatiana Vdovina addressed through Russian Anti-Corruption Civil Society Center Clean Hands to mass-media and society was saying that many «articles» are libel and aiming to discredit her son in order to justify the state bodies  let the sentence of 120 hours community service for causing the death of her son . “My son was a student who was an intelligent home-boy, engaged in programming ... My son is absolute opposite of the murderer. Mochalin has a hostile attitude towards those people as my son. The intolerance of this way of life, way of thinking resulted in the commission of the crime by Mochalin. I am sure that the new sentence will be unchanged, due to civil society control” Tatiana said.
- The information in the above-mentioned publication contains all constituent elements of the offence according to Article 129 of Russian Criminal Code - Evgeny Arkhipov a Chairman of Association of Russian Lawyers for Human Rights said. - The question arises: when we released first information about “15 days for the murder” many Russian journalists were suffering state pressure to stop publications, why the law enforcement bodies   do not institute criminal proceedings against so-called "journalists" for false information. The answer is obvious. Releases of such materials are sponsored clearly by state bodies which have been forced to change the sentence of a person who committed the most terrible crime - deprived of life of another man. The aim of false publications is obvious.  State bodies are trying to justify their actions brought to the sentence 120 hours of community service. Who interested in the sponsored publications? Basing on the analysis of this case we can conclude, whose “esprit de corps” was injured during announcing of the case and the possible corruption schemes in mass-media.
Investigation of such crimes is obligation of Russian Investigating Committee .
This instance had all the evidences against the offender, more over  the case file shows that the offender with  a group of individuals committed the murder  despite of that  the Investigation Committee  prosecuted just one person. This body followed the case file in such a way that allowed the court to give verdict of not guilty factually. All this happened under the patronage of attorney office. In this case, the Court was obliged to return the criminal case for further investigation, which was not done.
But any way the murderer was sentenced for 6 years of imprisonment and justice triumphed.