Appeal against cooperation between Moscow police and murderers of Aleksander Ryuhin

Mister Prosecutor!

We have learned from relatives of died anti-fascist Sasha Ryuhin, and their lawyer, that investigator V.A. Pashkevich who is working with case of murder of Ryuhin is violating the current criminal process codex of Russian Federation, and prosecutor and investigation are consciously attempting to belittle guiltiness of the accused.

Vasili Reutskii, Andrei Andchiferov and Aleksandr Shitov, who are currently on remand, were cleared of murder charges by splitting the case to two separate ones. Right now they are facing charges under statute 213 of Russian Criminal Codex, second part (hooliganism, made with a group of persons with a preliminary agreement or by an organised group), statute 115 (Conscious moderate bodily harm) and statute 116 (maltreatment). Only those who are searched are accused of murder. Such an approach is contradicting Russian criminal process codex - two different punishments may not be given for one crime. Investigators are using means, popular among criminals - all guiltiness is laid on those who are dead or on the run.

Lawyer of mother of Sasha Ryuhin, Stanislav Markelov says that accused, who are currently under search warrant, will most likely manage to hide forever as investigation is doing next to nothing in order to find them. Investigation did not even interrogated many of the witnesses, who were on spot of the murder. Thus fascists, who acted with a group and with a preliminary agreement, will receive a minor punishment or will escape it alltogether. As they will be certain of their impunity, they will go for similar actions in future as well.

It is known, that accused are members of ultra-right extremist group "Slavic Union", "Format 18" and "United Brigade 88". According to human rights organisations, just during a year fascists have committed dozens of crimes motivated with national hatred. Plenty of people have been killed or wounded. Lately fascist violence has spread also to people with other political points of view, among them Aleksander Ryuhin.

We demand to stop cooperation between prosecutor, investigation and fascist
murderers.