#7
BBC Monitoring
Libel case against Russia's Nezavisimaya Gazeta editor political - chief editor
Source: Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0925 gmt 30 Mar 02

[No dateline as received] The summons served on Igor Zotov to come for questioning is an attempt to exercise "powerful psychological pressure of the staff of the paper, probably, on the paper's shareholders and the journalistic community, at least that of Moscow", chief editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta Tatyana Koshkareva has told the Ekho Moskvy radio.

On 30 March Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that its deputy chief editor Igor Zotov had been summoned for questioning to the Moscow prosecutor's office.

Journalist Igor Zotov does not deal with political reporting, Koshkareva said. He was in charge of cultural issues and is "in fact the chief editor of the Ex Libris literary supplement to Nezavisimaya Gazeta", Koshkareva explained. Zotov's main job consisted of writing book and film reviews. His only publication with a political angle, Koshkareva said, was a report on the London screening of the documentary "Attack on Russia" [on the 1999 explosions in apartment blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk]. She explained that the latter was not a review of the film but a factual report on the film's presentation.

"I think they want to turn Igor Zotov into a hostage and comparisons to the arrest of [former Media Most top manager] Anton Titov at the beginning of the NTV story would be appropriate here," Koshkareva said.

She added that she did not think that Zotov should go to the prosecutor's office for questioning. Koshkareva promised that the paper would do everything possible to resolve the present situation and that lawyers had already been invited to offer their advice.