Translation of the post by Elena Platonova, an author of the Russian-language neweurasia.

Lawyers for the workers of “Mittal Steel Temirtau”, on whom the whole blame for death of 41 miners in the Central Kazakhstan was put, have proved that their clients should not be on a dock.

The lawyers have found so many infringements in the case materials, that release of miners is the only variant of the case’s end. It has appeared, that four out of eight miners are held in an investigatory cell for several months on a criminal case, which officially has not been filed at all!

Many expertises were made by the inappropriate people, examinations of sites of incidents were conducted without witnesses. All this is inadmissible by the Criminal Procedural Code. Lawyers list the infringements they have found, and claim that all evidences against the defendants in this situation become unreasonable and lose any force.

However, nobody ever believed that 8 mid-level miners can be the only guilty for the September tragedy in small town in the Karaganda oblast. Originally, the special commission, that investigated the incident, named 23 employees of the large foreign company as involved in explosion; among them there were also representatives of the higher management. Later some of them loudly declared self-resignation, but now appears that they still work in the company.

The prosecutors have asked the court for four days to prepare the worthy answer to the lawyers and to explain why the investigation was conducted in this way and why actually 8 workers were held under arrest for so long. “Probably, the case now will be sent for reinvestigation, but already it is possible to tell, that it has simply collapsed”, the lawyers say.