Kati Marton: Chairman of the Russian Supreme Court believes Kadyrov's suing Orlov was a mistake

Vyacheslav Lebedev, Chairman of the Supreme Court, said that the litigation initiated by the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov against Oleg Orlov, head of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", was a mistake. This was stated by Kati Marton, a member of the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), after meeting with Mr Lebedev.

"Mr Bastrykin's words that Kadyrov had been interrogated on Natalia Estemirova's case, and no evidences of his guilt were found don't mean that Oleg Orlov is guilty. It's absolutely and categorically not! We met the Chairman of the Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev; and he told us that he didn't like the fact that Kadyrov sued Orlov. According to his story, this was wrong," Kati Marton told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

On September 27, the CPJ delegation attended the court session on Oleg Orlov's case, who is under threat of a serious punishment for alleged slandering Ramzan Kadyrov.

"A step forward is at least the fact that the ICPO (Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office) by its own initiative named Kadyrov among those interrogated on Estemirova's. It's a small step, but it's still a step forward," said Ms Marton.

She added in her comment on the meeting at the ICPO that the CPJ would not stop its work on this issue: "We have channels to go on with this work not only with Russian authorities, but also in America, and in the USA; in particular, the US Ambassador to Russia, who welcomed our delegation very warmly, has been always supporting us."

When asked by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent whether her organization would make a separate report for the next meeting at the ICPO specifically on the situation in the Caucasus, where most of the journalists had perished, Kati Marton said that the CPJ did not plan a separate report on the Caucasus.

Alexander Mnatsakanyan, a human rights activist and a representative of the "Demos" Centre, finds the meeting of the CPJ delegation with the ICPO leadership to be a good initiative. However, he was bewildered why Russian associations of journalists are so shy in raising the same thorny issues about journalists' murders in Russia.

He added that sometimes Russian journalists, unlike the American delegation, face difficulties or almost impossibilities in contacting the ICPO; but he also stressed that he knew little about such attempts.

His words are confirmed by the fact that the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has repeatedly tried to get comments from the ICPO on the passed dialogue with the CPJ delegation, but failed in all the attempts. The press service of the Committee offered to borrow the information from the ICPO's official website. However, they promised to answer the correspondent's personal questions later, but it was never done.