On 16 June judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Tatyana Pron’kina for the third time adjourned the examination of the criminal case in relation to two former criminal investigations department police officers under the Department of the Interior for Orenburg, Kirill Sorokin and Aleksey Pustovidov, charged with crime under item «a» part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Procedural Code of the RF (abuse of office with use of force). This time it was caused by a motion of a new defense lawyer Anton Pivovarov, who represents the interests of defendant Aleksey Pustovidov, on familiarizing with the criminal case materials. Next court hearing is scheduled for 6 July. Start at 10.30.

(The defendants are hiding their faces)
    
Lawyer of the Committee Against Torture Albina Mudarisova, representing the interests of Aleksandr Zhdan, comments on the development of the court proceedings: «It has been the third court hearing when the court fails to start examining the case on its merits due to the fact that defendant Pustovidov continues to hold up the proceedings in every possible way. He repeatedly, without indicating motives, waived the services of lawyer Malyshev, who used to be his defense lawyer during pre-trial investigation, later on the defendant waived the services of his new lawyer Ruzil Akhmadishin, who filed a motion on the adjournment of the court hearing due to the necessity to study the case materials. I’m convinced that repeated waiving the lawyers’ services by defendant Pustovidov without legal grounds and according to criteria known to him only, amounts to abuse of the right aiming at holding up the court proceedings for no reason and escape criminal responsibility. I suspect that 6 July court hearing may be sabotaged or delayed due to the fault of the defense team, as it happened before. But I hope that the court takes appropriate measures to examine the case in reasonable time».