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Moscow court to begin trial of attempted mutiny case

Retired Colonel of Main Intelligence Department Kvachkov denied any wrongdoing and insisted that all the charges were far-fetched
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, October 18 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow City Court on Thursday will begin the trial of retired Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov accused of the attempt to mastermind a mutiny. The preliminary hearing will be held behind closed doors.

Retired Colonel of Main Intelligence Department 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/, Russia's Federal Security Service /FSB/ said earlier.

Kvachkov denied any wrongdoing and insisted that all the charges were far-fetched.

He 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 apprehended 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 show Narodnoye Opolcheniye and another organization - Minin and Pozharsky's Militia - as terrorist groups. "There are no facts to support the case," the retired Colonel said.

Earlier, a court in Yekaterinburg convicted other defendants in this case.

Kvachkov was the key suspect in the case over the assassination attempt on the life of chief of RAO UES electric utility Anatoly 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. Kvachkov later won a 450,000-rouble damages suit.

Kvachkov had to undergo a psychiatric expert examination twice. The first was carried out within the framework of the Chubais attack case.