Boris Kuznetsov

Who is Boris Kuznetsov?

Boris Avramovich Kuznetsov is a prominent Russian lawyer who has acted in many notable criminal and human rights cases, and who has been persecuted by the Russian authorities. He left Russia in 2007 and in February 2008 was granted asylum in the US. His absence caused the case against him to be suspended in April. It was restarted in July, before again being abandoned in May 2009. He has sought redress against the Russian authorities in the European Court of Human Rights.

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

In the course of defending his client, Federation Council member Levon Chakhmakhchyan, he submitted a document to the Russian Constitutional Court about the Russian Federal Security Service's illegal wiretaps of Chakhmakhchyan's phone conversations.