Investigative Committee Replies to BAJ’s Appeal Regarding Regnum Case
The Investigative Committee considers that it is too early to hold a press conference concerning the case of three journalists who had written for Regnum. Meanwhile, the agency said not a single word on the “patriots’ case”. This is what arrived in reply to BAJ’s petition filed on May 11.
“Since the start of the criminal case against Y. Paulavets, D. Alimkin and S. Shyptsenka, the Investigative Committee has provided official information to different mass media, including foreign mass media, at least five times. Based on the situation in the criminal case /…/, it is too early to hold a media press conference,” says the official reply signed by press officer of the agency Siarhei Kabakovich.
The BAJ petition was sent to the Investigative Committee, the KGB and the Prosecutor General on May 11. BAJ demanded to hold a press conference for all kinds of mass media and to present official information, concerning the investigation into the criminal cases widely discussed lately, namely the case of “Bely Legion” (the so-called “patriots’ case”) and the case of three bloggers of Regnum.
The persons involved in the “patriots case” have stayed behind bars since March; however, none official information has been presented for the media of any kind of ownership. There were several publications in state media, based on the investigative information. The publications were anonymous and were subjective and one-sided. Similar coverage was given to three bloggers who had authored pro-Russia blogs for Regnum agency: Y. Paulavets, D. Alimkin and S. Shyptsenka have stayed in jail for almost half a year; the official information is extremely scarce.
The replies from the KGB and the General prosecutor’s office are somewhere on the way.