Navalny surrendered to Usmanov in the first minutes of the trial
The Lyublinsky District Court of Moscow today began considering a claim to protect the honor and dignity of businessman Alisher Usmanov against oppositionist and blogger Alexei Navalny.
Usmanov sued Navalny in April. In his lawsuit, the oligarch disputes information from the investigative film “He’s Not Dimon for You”: the video, according to the plaintiff, contained “deliberately untrue” information that discredited his honor, dignity and business reputation. Thus, Navalny believes that the deal for Usmanov to transfer a land plot of 4,3 hectares in the village of Znamenskoye near the Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway to the Fund for Support of Socially Significant State Projects was in fact a bribe to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev since the fund is managed by people close to him. The oppositionist estimated the cost of the estate at 5 billion rubles.
The court began by rejecting the request for live broadcasting of the proceedings. This caused Navalny to literally go hysterical.
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“I get the same thing every time in court. First they refuse to broadcast, then they reject my requests, then I lose,” the defendant complained.
“Your words will be entered into the protocol,” the judge responded.
It is noteworthy that Navalny does not face any material losses if he loses in court, since Usmanov refused to demand compensation for the damage caused.
“Although the plaintiff is entitled to compensation for moral damages, he chose not to make such a claim. This is due to the fact that the main goal of the lawsuit is the desire to contribute to the creation of a judicial precedent that would prevent the defendant from disseminating information with impunity in relation to a wide range of people,” explained Usmanov’s lawyer Eleonora Sergeeva.
Navalny, attached to the last phrase, tried to prove that Usmanov cannot act as a plaintiff, since we are talking about a “wide circle of people.” He also argued that since the plaintiff is a businessman, the case should be considered in an arbitration court.
When the judge ignored this illiterate legal casuistry, the oppositionist switched to the usual political populism and demanded that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov be called as witnesses.
“Everyone should be equal before the law,” Navalny ranted.
“Before calling a witness, you need to decide whether his testimony is relevant to the case. To do this, you need to provide some data that would indicate that Medvedev has at least some connection to the lawsuit. This has not yet been confirmed. The publication that served as the subject of the lawsuit first talks about the “Medvedev Foundation”, then that it is a “circum-Medvedev Foundation”. Subsequently, Navalny refuses this and claims that this is a “fund controlled by Medvedev.” The statement that Medvedev is related to this fund is arbitrary and has not yet been based on anything. Therefore, I regard the petition to summon Medvedev as political,” said Usmanov’s lawyer Genrikh Padva.
The court did not consider Navalny’s petition at this stage, but did not rule out that it would return to it later.
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