Boris Kuznetsov

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For the Olympic boxer, see Boris Kuznetsov (boxer).

Boris Abramovich Kuznetsov (born 1935) is a prominent Russian lawyer who was engaged in many notable criminal and human rights cases, and who has been prosecuted by the Russian authorities.

Kuznetsov represented the families of the 118 sailors killed in the Kursk nuclear submarine,^[1] relatives of murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, scientist Igor Sutyagin jailed on espionage charges,^[2] NGO director Manana Aslamazyan^[3] and many others. Kuznetsov also represented KGB General Oleg Kalugin in his lawsuit against USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, who had stripped Kalugin of awards and General title for exposing KGB operations.^[4]

In the course of defending his client, Federation Council member Levon Chakhmakhchyan, he submitted to Russian Constitutional Court a document about the Russian Federal Security Service's illegal wiretapings of Chakhmakhchyan's phone conversations. Based on that, Kuznetsov has been prosecuted for allegedly revealing state top secrets.^[5] The criminal case against Kuznetsov was initiated on the personal request from Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev.

Kuznetsov claimed that "I was simply carrying out my duty...I found documents that talked about wiretapping not just a common citizen, but a member of the Federation Council. I did as much as I could to make sure that fact was exposed and proven. And it was precisely that memorandum, marked 'secret,' that contained evidence that [security services] knew who they were eavesdropping on. And I sent it not to [Israel's] Mossad [intelligence agency] or the CIA, but to the Constitutional Court."

According to Kuznetsov, he was wrongly accused for angering the FSB: "I think there was an element of revenge in this for the book I published two years ago, but most probably it was done to exclude me from several cases, such as the case of [Educated Media Foundation chief] Manana Aslamazyan," Kuznetsov said. "I also represent the interests of [Anna] Politkovskaya's family; I don't rule out that it had to do with the case of Vladimir Khutsishvili, accused of killing [former Rosbiznesbank chief] Ivan Kivelidi, because it's perfectly plain that security services were involved in those cases in one way or another."

Kuznetsov was criticized by journalist Yulia Latynina for defending criminals [1] [2]. She also stated that his former client, scientist Igor Sutyagin is probably a spy [3]. In reply, Kuznetsov hinted that Latynina was conducting a disinformation campaign on behalf of the Russian secret service FSB [4] [5] [6].

[edit] Books

Kuznetsov published a book about the sinking of the Russian nucleat submarine Kursk and the cover up of the facts behind the disaster by Russian authorities. ^[6]