Main trial of “Ryskaliev's organized criminal group” postponed for a month

By Zulfiya Bainekeeva

The date of main judicial proceedings concerning the group of people charged with connections to former governor of Atyrau Oblast Bergey Ryskaliev's  activity has been announced.

The press service of the regional court reported that the trial of 22 accused defendants will start on January 23, 2014 – “considering special complexity of this criminal case, its scope and a number of filed objections by the participants of the process, the court postponed the start of the main judicial proceedings”.

Goulmira Dauletova, the chairman of specialized inter-district court on criminal cases of Atyrau Oblast, has been appointed as the main judge.

Scandalous petitions filed by different groups of lawyers and defendants prior and during the first hearing, objecting the court and prosecutors, failed to give expected results. The judge Goulnar Khazhenova rejected one of them – the objection to the inter-district specialized court of Atyrau Oblast - due to lack of the grounds - and this decision is not subject to appeal. The second petition containing the objection and mistrust to the whole composition of the jury and to state prosecutors was also dismissed, but with the right of the appeal.

- We also demanded that this case should be submitted to the Supreme Court due to mistrust for a number of reasons to local judges and their capability to consider the case objectively and impartially, - said the lawyer Igor Vranchev. – Since the dismissal of our petition can be appealed, we will use this right.