Texts for sight translation Text 1 Kholodov Appeal Rejected

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the acquittal of six men suspected of murdering investigative journalist Dmitry Kholodov more than a decade ago, delivering a blow to state prosecutors and the victims’ parents, who exhausted their last legal recourse in Russia.

Kholodov, a Moskovsky Komsomolets reporter who investigated mili­tary corruption, was killed in 1994 when a briefcase he had picked up at Kazansky Station following an anonymous call blew up in his office.

Six men charged in the killing, including four former members of an elite paratroops unit, were acquitted in two separate trials, in 2002 and 2004.

The Supreme Court’s military board on Monday ruled against the prosecutors’ and Kholodov family’s appeal to send the case back to trial. The statute of limitations on the case had expired.

There are no more possibilities for appeal in Russia, and Kholodov’s father said they now would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, whose ruling would be binding on Moscow. “We are sure they are guilty of the death of our son,” Kholodov’s father said after the verdict. “No one can convince us otherwise.”

Prosecutor Irina Aleshina insisted that the evidence in the case pointed at the defendants’ guilt. (The Moscow Times, March 15, 2005)

Text 2 Human trafficking and slave trade

Only 25 cases of human trafficking and slave labor were registered last year, but an Interior Ministry official said this was only the tip of the iceberg and understaffed police forces and hesitant victims were hindering prevention efforts.

Igor Dyomin, deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s criminal investigation department, said Tuesday that 17 cases of human trafficking and eight cases of slave labor were registered in 2004.

“But the statistical data we have do not reflect the actual situation, because the latency of such crimes is high”, Dyomin told reporters, adding that most victims are women forced into prostitution, ITAR-TASS reported.

Anti-trafficking organisations said last year that some 50,000 women and children from Russia and other former Soviet republics are sold into slavery in the United States every year. Other destinations include Turkey, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and China.

Dyomin said the police force did not have enough officers to deal with the problem, and that victims were often scared to turn to the police for help. “These factors make the job significantly more difficult”, Dyomin said.

Dyomin also complained that penalties were too lax for sex tourists who prey on minors.

Interior Ministry spokesman Denis Strukov confirmed Wednesday that the criminal investigations department was monitoring sex tourism but declined to elaborate, citing ongoing investigations. In April, US law enforcement officials arrested an American doctor at New-York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on suspicion of travelling to St. Petersburg to have sex with boys. (The Moscow Times, by Carl Schreck, 3.03.2005)