In Russia, witnesses risk their lives

Officers with the Russian witness protection force exercise their skills in a mock ambush on a highway near Moscow. According to police statistics, 10 million people testify each year in criminal trials. Half of them are threatened, police say, and only 20,000 of those are given protection.

In a corrupt legal climate, testifying at trial is fraught with danger: kidnapping, arson, break-ins, attacks. With many Russians also afraid of the police, a witness protection program is little help

By Megan K. Stack
LA Times
August 2, 2009

Reporting from Moscow — Valery Kazakov was almost to the prosecutor's office when the killers caught him. He was shot as he cut through an alleyway, and when he stumbled bleeding into the street, a man bent down to stab the final breaths out of him.

It was 3 o'clock in the afternoon, in the heart of the sleepy town of Pushkino. As far as the townspeople were concerned, it was a public execution. Kazakov, a former police officer, was believed to have been on his way to testify in the corruption case against the former mayor.

It has been a year now, and Kazakov's widow holds out little hope of justice, shrugging off the idea with weary skepticism. Police recently arrested the alleged killer, but that's just a "technical detail," Maria Kazakova says. She wants to know who put the hit on her husband, who ordered and paid for it.

"Maybe we'll find out, if the killer isn't killed before he starts talking." Kazakova pauses, staring down into her coffee cup. "Nothing is clean in Russia."

(More here.)