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Retired Colonel demands 50 mln rbls for illegal criminal prosecution

We're filing a statement of claim at Moscow's Tverskoi court demanding 50.29 million roubles as compensation for moral damage

MOSCOW, May 16 (Itar-Tass) — Retired Main Intelligence Department Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov is filing a damages suit for illegal prosecution in the case over the assassination attempt on the life of chief of RAO UES electric utility Chubais in the spring of 2005, his lawyer Oksana Mikhalkina told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

"We're filing a statement of claim at Moscow's Tverskoi court demanding 50.29 million roubles as compensation for moral damage," Mikhalkina said.

The defender is the Finance Ministry.

Kvachkov was the key suspect in the case over the assassination attempt on the life of chief of RAO UES electric utility Chubais on March 17, 2005.

A jury found all the defendants in the assassination attempt case not guilty, in a marathon eight-hour session overnight to August 21, 2010.

At present, Kvachkov is in custody within the framework of another criminal case. He is accused of attempted armed mutiny.

Its investigation was completed last December, and the defendants and his lawyers are now reading the case materials.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said retired Colonel of Main Intelligence Department Vladimir Kvachkov was a suspect under two articles of the Criminal Code: Article 279 and Article 30, Part 1 (attempted organization of armed mutiny) and Article 205, Part 1 (recruiting or involving persons in terrorism).

Kvachkov said he had been arrested on the testimony of a regional leader of the Narodnoye Opolcheniye (Militia) organization he leads.

The chief of Narodnoye Opolcheniye's Togliatti office was arrested in the summer of 2010.

After ten days in custody he testified against Kvachkov.

"According to the testimony, there was a person in Togliatti, who sent two groups of people, armed with crossbows, to a forest to begin an armed uprising," Kvachkov said.

He said he was confident that the detainees' statements were distorted, in order to cast Narodnoye Opolcheniye and another organization - Minin and Pozharsky's Militia - as terrorist groups. "There are no facts in the case," the retired Colonel said.

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