Law and order – and one would hope

LAW AND ORDER – AND ONE WOULD HOPE

TRUTH! AN INNOCENT MAN SHOULD NOT SIT IN PRISON, EVEN IF HE IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

The American newspaper “Washington Times” published an article by E.Idrissov, Kazakhstan‘s Ambassador in the United States titled “Kazakhstan unfairly criticized in human rights case. Activists can’t kill people with impunity”, which was devoted to my case. After reading this article, I cannot let it go without a response, as it is am ix of slight of hand, falsehoods, and manipulations of a human tragedy, the death of a man. And that is not allowable.
 
No one ever charged me with killing a man. Ambassador Idrissov should have known that I was charged with violating traffic regulations leading to the death of a person, and not with murder. The crime with which I was charged is, according to Kazakhstani law, a low-level crime committed as there sult of a lack of caution.
 
I do not admit that I violated the traffic regulations, that I could have avoided the accident, or that I was guilty of negligence. I tried to prove this during the investigation and during the trials, but was not allowed to do so. I demanded a fair trial, which I did not receive.

In claiming that I was afforded a just and objective trial, the Ambassador fails to mention that the judge rejected nearly all of the defense’s substantive motions, refused to accept into evidence the conclusions of three independent experts, two from Russia, presented by the defense, though one expert was the co-author of the regulations for carrying out technical examinations of automobile accidents. The court also refused to examine them as witnesses. The Russian experts concluded that, given the speedlimit, the time of day, and the weather and road conditions, I had not exceeded the allowable speed limit. They also concluded that I not only had no technical possibility to avoid hitting the pedestrian, but that I could not even have begun to brake in time. The Kazakhstani specialist, meanwhile, pointed out a number of serious methodological errors in the official investigation on the basis of which I was charged, which call all of its conclusions into question.
 
The Ambassador also failed to comment on the fact that there is a report on the observation of my appeals trial by the “International Commission of Jurists”, the conclusions of which leave no doubt that my right to a defense and to a fair and objective trial were violated.
 
I agree with him on one point, that justice should be impartial and the same laws should apply to everyone.

Yevgeni Zhovtis

July 14, 2010