Kazakhstan, 2013-07-09

'The trial of Kazakhstan oppositionist Vladimir Kozlov to be heard before the Supreme Court in Astana was cancelled. After 45 minutes of waiting at the pass desk, the announcement about the cancellation of the trial was delivered to us, i.e. four MP observers (Marcin Święcicki, Tomasz Makowski, Piotr Cieśliński and Adam Rybakowicz), observers from the EU, USA, Austria and France diplomatic posts, Mr Kozlov's wife, defence counsels and the Kazakhstan oppositionists' - comments regarding the decision were posted by Marcin Święcicki, a Member of the Polish Parliament, on his Facebook profile.

'The trial was deferred in order to allow time to obtain the case file from Aktau, even though the Supreme Court must have known that the case file was not there when it was setting the trial date.'

The examination of the so-called 'nadzornaya zhaloba' (supervisory appeal) is the last available opportunity afforded by the judicial system of Kazakhstan which could lead to a change of the court sentence. Vladimir Kozlov's attorneys are now endeavouring to obtain that last opportunity at the Supreme Court. The trial date was postponed yet again. The previous one was set for 24 June 2013 and then postponed until 1 July 2013. 

'Our authorities resemble an ostrich which has buried its head in the sand and is afraid of admitting that it is wrong' - this is how human rights defender Galym Ageleulov commented on the postponement of the trial. 'The authorities do not seek objectivism in this case and will act as despicably as they did towards Roza Tuletaeva, Maksat Dosmagambetov and other people who, without any guilt on their part, were convicted and are now bearing a cross for everything that happened in Zhanaozen on 16 December 2011.'