Ex financial police agent accuses «Vremya» newspaper journalist Tokhniyaz Kuchukov of libel

On December 14 Zhetysu District Court No. 2 of Almaty continued to consider the private complaint of the former financial police agent Talgat Makhatov. Makhatov accuses the correspondent of the newspaper “Vremya” Tokhniyaz Kuchukov of libel (Article 130, part 2, libel). The journalist wrote a number of articles about Makhatov’s detention under suspicion of murder of Medet Zhamashev, Almaty customs officer.

The articles were initiated by Almaty prosecutor's office press-release, published on July 3, 2017 about investigation of the murder of Zhamashev conducted by investigation group of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and suspicions on Makhatov’s crimination.

A numbert of media published a series of articles about the ex-agent after the prosecutor's office statement. However, the only jpurnalist whom Makhatov accused, was “Vremya” newspaper correspondent. The ex-agent claimed that publications in “Vremya” spawned the series of publications.

As it was reported earlier, Makhatov became known in certain circles as Agent Sanych (aka Concrete). He was the main witness for the so-called "Khorgos cas." five years ago.

Kuchukov's lawyer, Gennady Nam made a motion to enter scans of the articles about Talgat Makhatov published in various media into the case file as various the only way to prove Kuchukov's innocence and evidence that Kuchukov had no malicious intent and, as the lawyer believes, relied on official information. Bbesdies, a number of electronic media also told about this case in detail.

Judge Nurgul Batyrhan rejected G.Nam’s motion and the lawyer challened the judge. On December 14, 2017, Judge Kairbaev considered the challenge and rejected it.