(Adil Soz/IFEX) – On 10 March 2006, the Medeu District Court in Almaty fined local businessman and opposition politician Bulat Abilov and the Duniye company, which owns “Svoboda Slova” newspaper, 1 million tenge (approx. US$7,800) and 50,000 tenge (approx. US$400), respectively, for “moral damages” in a lawsuit launched by Canadian businessman Adonis Derbas. Derbas, seeking […]
(Adil Soz/IFEX) – On 10 March 2006, the Medeu District Court in Almaty fined local businessman and opposition politician Bulat Abilov and the Duniye company, which owns “Svoboda Slova” newspaper, 1 million tenge (approx. US$7,800) and 50,000 tenge (approx. US$400), respectively, for “moral damages” in a lawsuit launched by Canadian businessman Adonis Derbas.
Derbas, seeking 10 million tenge (approx. US$ 70,000) in damages, applied to the court over the newspaper’s publication, on 13 July 2005, of transcripts of an interview with Abilov.
The published transcript, entitled “Who owns Kazakhstan?”, cited Abilov as saying: “An example of Canadian businessman Derbas Adonis, who conducted business with Rakhat Aliyev. As soon as he began standing for his rights, he was convicted in 10 minutes, jailed for 15 days, and then deported from the country as a criminal.” Derbas’ attorney, Kasken Nurkebayev, said the quotation insulted the honor, dignity and business reputation of the plaintiff.
A textual analysis of the interview by an expert for the Adil Soz’ Center of Independent Expertise, philologist Rakhilya Kaymsakova, showed that “information contained in the article was neither offending nor insulting.” Editor-in-chief of “Svoboda Slova”, Gulzhan Yergaliyeva, believes the court ruling represents part of “a crackdown on the opposition newspaper.”
In a separate but related case, on 3rd March 2006 Zhetysu District Court, also in Almaty, ordered journalist Gennady Benditskiy and the newspaper “Vremya” to print a retraction and pay 500,000 tenge (approx. US$3,800) each to Derbas for “moral damages.” The lawsuit, filed by Derbas, was based on a 28 April 2005 “Vremya” article entitled “A komu KTK? Nedorogo” (“Who wants to buy KTK? It is not expensive”). The court found the article to be insulting to the honor, dignity and business reputation of Derbas. The article claimed that Derbas, who had invested US$ 700,000 in Kazakhstan’s business sector, was arrested after being forced to close his business, and then expelled from the country.
The lawyer for “Vremya”, Valentina Zhukovskaya, said the newspaper has documents to validate the content of the article.
In April 2005, “Vremya” newspaper and Benditskiy faced a previous lawsuit over the same article and were made to pay 70,000 tenge (approx. US$ 500) and 30,000 tenge (approx. US$ 200), respectively, to the three plaintiffs who launched the civil lawsuit: businesspeople Horani Issama Salah, Horani Devinchi Salah and Horani Gulshat, who were mentioned in the article.
