Organized Crime Control Division Officer demanded an apology from Nasha Gazeta to all police officers

Hearings of the lawsuit of Andrei Bolotskikh, officer of Organized Crime Control Division of the regional Department of Internal Affairs against the weekly Nasha Gazeta and journalists Tatiana Nazaruk and Olga Likhograi finished in the Kostanay city court .

A. Bolotskikh believes that the reporter of the newspaper Tatiana Nazaruk in the article “Bakha is very angry and demands money” (dated 10.25.2018) publicly accused him of a corruption offense. According to the lawsuit the article says that  that the case of Andrei Bolotskikh, “who, according to investigators, also put pressure on Mukushev and his spouse in order to force out money from them, was severed from other charges”, and correspondent Olga Likhogray  repeated this informationon in her article on November 15, 2018.

Bolotskikh notes that the published information "is untrue by nature, received from an incompetent state body that does not have the right to provide information for further publications in media, and is not confirmed by the materials of the criminal case."

Earlier, A. Bolotskikh appealed to the editor with a pre-trial claim. On November 29, 2019, the newspaper published a clarification that Bolotskikh is just a witness in the case of A. Zaichenko. At the same time, the editorial staff notes, the text of the clarification was agreed with Andrei Bolotskikh and there was an oral agreement that the conflict was settled. In court, the representative of the plaintiff Zhanar Abilova explained: Andrei Bolotskikh was not satisfied with the font of those publications and their placement in the newspaper. In addition to compensation for non-pecuniary damage and expenses incurred in paying for legal services, the claimant demands a refutation, as well as an apology to all police officers.

Journalists disagreed with the claim. The articles were written on the trial on charges of A. Zaichenko, director of Kostanay PromGaz LLP, mediating in giving a bribe to B. Dysyukov, former head of the Organize Crime Division of the regional Department of Internal Affairs.

“Everything that is written here was said in court and was heard by me in court. All these phrases were said by Tamara Mukusheva. Almost the entire article was written from her words. "In that particular sentence, I did not indicate that, because otherwise I had to write “according to Tamara Mukusheva” in each sentence",-  Tatyana Nazaruk explained.

As Olga Likhogray noted, Tamara Mukusheva said that Bolotskikh put pressure on Sapabek Mukushev and on her, trying to get money from them, and she doest not retract her words.

“We did everything we could to resolve this problem peacefully,  before we were brought to court,” said Olga Kolokolova, editor-in-chief of the Nasha Gazeta weekly. -"His position was published. Everything he said was published in Nasha Gazeta".

On May 15, Judge Bakhytgul Kankulova satisfied the claims of Andrey Bolotskikh partially . Controversial information was recognized as  defamatory and untrue, and must be refuted. The defendants must jointly pay 300 thousand tenge in compensation for moral harm to the plaintiff, reimburse Bolotskis 33,333 tenge for legal services  and 11,783 tenge for linguistic expert evaluation. Journalists intend to appeal the court ruling in the appellate court.