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25.03.11
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"The Worst Cop" Strikes Back
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By Andrew Roth
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A celebrated Soviet music critic and journalist, Artemy Troitsky, is being sued for defamation of character by a police officer he publicly named “the worst cop in Russia.” The hearings, which began yesterday in Moscow’s Gagarin Court, have renewed attention to law enforcement’s bungling of the investigation into an infamous car crash on Leninsky Prospekt last year, and provided a forum for wider criticism of Russia’s privileged elite by Yuri Shevchuk, the iconic leader of the rock band DDT.
In February of last year two well-known gynecologists, Olga Aleksandrina and Vera Sidelnikova, were killed when their Citroen hit a Mercedes carrying LUKoil Vice President Anatoly Barkov in a head-on collision. Troitsky presented an “award” at a DDT concert in November to be given to the traffic cop Nikolai Khovansky, who was first at the scene of the accident and absolved the Mercedes of responsibility for the crash. Troitsky is being sued for calling the cop the “worst police officer in Russia” for his connection to the scandal, a comment Troitsky added to at the concert by referring to all the “vile cops” as “werewolves in epaulets.”
Journalists routinely lose suits over personal defamation in court in Russia, and it seems that Troitsky’s chances of winning this case are slim to none. To prove guilt in such a case, the statement in question needs to be made in a public forum, must be of a malicious nature, and finally, must somehow “not conform to the truth,” said lawyer Alexander Glushenkov of the Russian Agency of Rights and Judicial Information. “If it were actually possible to defend the use of the word ‘worst [policeman],’ then Troitsky would have more of a chance in the suit, but it’s impossible to prove that term. I think it’s easy to say that he will probably lose this case, moreover because he made a public appearance specifically designed to humiliate the individual officer.”
Troitsky is asking the court for the investigation of the Leninsky Prospekt accident to be reviewed due to negligence and to establish the innocence of those who were killed. While Glushenkov called this “a possible attempt to put pressure” on Khovansky, Troitsky is also using his day in court as an opportunity to reignite the public ire over the issue of privileged drivers on Russian roads. The issue has produced heated criticism over the past year and has even provoked the formation of grassroots initiatives, whose members attempt to record traffic violations by elite cars carrying blue sirens, called “migalki.”
Shevchuk, a famous dissident musician and Soviet cultural icon, spoke in Troitsky’s defense yesterday, attacking a legal culture of indifference toward the elite in Russia today. “We live in a country, where boyars in cars with ‘migalki’ can get away with anything scot-free and the people are crucified for it,” said Shevchuk, reported Kommersant. “For that reason I do not doubt that the women killed in the accident were innocent. I’m ready to apologize before the plaintiff, if the court so decides, but this is an anti-award – a metaphor of what’s happening in this country.”
Moscow’s former Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, in particular, was well-known for initiating defamation suits against Russian and foreign journalists before his ouster last year. More recently, criticism of the police by groups such as artists Voina, who overturned empty police cars to protest against corruption and malpractice in the police force, has been challenged. Voina is being prosecuted under national laws on extremism, amid claims that the action incited hatred against a particular social group – the police. Such a charge is unlikely to be raised in this case, said Glushenkov, but Troitsky still has more legal troubles on the horizon. He is also being sued for defamation by a member of the group “Agatha Christie,” a band he called the “trained poodle of [Vladimir] Surkov,” the first deputy of the head of the presidential administration.
“It’s not a small thing to call people such unflattering epithets, and it doesn’t really solve any problems,” said Vladimir Kasyutin, a secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists. “I have read Artemy Troitsky’s work and material for more than 30 years. He was a very interesting, good journalist in the Soviet period and still is now. Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t always think about the consequences of our words. Someone gets offended and they open fire on journalists and the press. I think that one’s talents could be put to better use.” |
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