This statement was submitted today to the Nizhegorodskiy District Investigation Department of Nizhny Novgorod under the Investigation Committee of the RF Prosecutor’s Office for Nizhny Novgorod region by Ms. Olga Maslova.   

The reason for that is the article “The Rape did me good” published in Komsomolskaya Pravda Nizhny Novgorod and containing an interview with lawyer Andrey Milkov whom Ms. Maslova accuses of raping and torturing her. According to the article, lawyer Milkov said that Olga Maslova “was at that time (1999 – the year when Ms.Maslova was tortured and raped at the Prosecutor’s Office) a skinhead and member of a criminal group”.

At the same time Mr.Milkov did not supply any evidence to support his claim that Ms.maslova had been a criminal group member.

Olga maslova thinks that Mr.Milkov’s actions contain signs of the crime under p.3 of art. 129 of the RF Criminal Code («defamation linked to accusing an individual of a grave crime »).

You may remember the case of Maslova who claims she was battered and tortured by a number of people from the Nizhny Novgorod Prosecutor’s Office is supported by the Multiregional Committee against Torture. Specialists from the Committee against Torture  represented Ms.Maslova’s interests in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg.  

On January 24, 2008 the Strasburg Court held that Russia had violated art. 3 of the European Convention (“Prohibition of Torture”) in respect of Olga Maslova and obliged the RF to pay her 70 thousand euro as compensation.