Catering tycoon Evgeny Prigozhin has filed a complaint with prosecutors against Irina Levontina, a forensic linguistics expert who works for the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Levontina served as an expert witness in two defamation lawsuits that Prigozhin filed against journalists. According to Novaya Gazeta, the Kremlin-linked oligarch is accusing Levontina of “misconduct” because she included the Russian Language Institute’s official seal on paperwork submitted to the courts as expert evidence. Levontina believes that the complaints are an attempt to have her opinions, which don’t support Prigozhin’s claims in either case, thrown out.
Forensic linguistics expert Irina Levontina served as an expert witness in two recent defamation cases filed by Kremlin-linked oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin against Russian journalists. Now, Prigozhin has appealed to prosecutors with a complaint against her, arguing that the linguist had no right to use the official seal of her employer — the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The first case Levontina prepared an expert opinion for was a lawsuit Prigozhin brought against journalist Maxim Shevchenko. According to the ruling from Moscow’s Savelovsky District Court, Prigozhin contested statements Shevchenko made during a YouTube live stream in August 2020. Commenting on the 2018 murder of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic, Shevchenko said Prigozhin’s actors were tailing the victims “until the moment they were shot.”
In her forensic linguistic assessment, Levontina pointed out the speculative nature of Shevchenko’s statements, arguing that they expressed his personal opinion. She also concluded that Shevchenko didn’t make any statements that were demeaning to Prigozhin’s honor and dignity. The Savelovsky Court dismissed the lawsuit, but the Moscow City Court later overturned the ruling and returned the case for retrial. A hearing is scheduled for December 6.
The second case was a defamation lawsuit Prigohzin filed against Ekho Moskvy, its editor-in-chief Alexey Venediktov, and the chief editor of the radio station’s website, Vitaly Ruvinsky. The oligarch filed the claim after Venediktov called him “the owner of the Wagner PMC” during a radio broadcast in July 2020, reported the press service for Prigozhin’s Concord Group.
In her expert opinion, Levontina wrote that while on air, Venediktov presented his “personal view.” She also added that the text didn’t contain any disparaging information about Prigozhin. “The very information about E. Prigozhin’s connection with the Wagner PMC cannot be considered unambiguously negative,” she stated in her assessment, as quoted by Novaya Gazeta. The court has yet to render a decision on Prigozhin’s claim. The next hearing is scheduled for December 15.
Speaking to Novaya Gazeta, Levontina said that when she was preparing her opinion for the case against Shevchenko, one of Prigozhin’s representatives called the Russian Language Institute to inquire about her position there and whether she is allowed to give expert testimony. The administration responded by confirming that Levontina works there, but said that she prepared the expert opinions in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the institute. Prigozhin’s lawyer sent a similar letter to the institute after Levontina prepared an expert opinion for the case against Ekho Moskvy.
On November 1, the Khamovincheskaya Inter-district Attorney’s Office appealed to the Russian Language Institute with a request to verify evidence of the unlawful use of the institute’s official seal on Levontina’s expert opinions. In response, the institute’s acting director Fedor Uspensky told the agency that “the institute’s official seal was put on the linguistic reports not for the purpose of affirming the text of the reports, but for the purpose of authenticating her [Levontina’s] personal signature.” Nevertheless, prosecutors began calling the institute, requesting that it hand over Irina Levontina’s personal information, the linguist said. According to Levontina, “for some reason, a district police officer came to seize documents.”
Irina Levontina