Pardoned pilots arrive in Moscow

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JULY 25. The Russian pilots granted pardon in the Purulia arms drop case arrived in Moscow from Calcutta today, with their lawyer vowing to push for their acquittal.

All Russian television channels showed footage of the pilots' tearful reunion with their wives and children they had not seen for nearly five years. TV narrators stressed that the pilots had barely survived in the horrid conditions of the Indian prison where some of them had fallen seriously ill. A physician who examined them on arrival was quoted as saying that they did not need emergency aid but would require long rehabilitatory treatment.

The pilots' lawyer, Mrs. Karina Moskalenko, who was also at the airport, said she was not going to recall her appeal in the Calcutta High Court against the life sentence and would press for their full acquittal. ``As their lawyer, I know very well the case and can assert that the pilots are absolutely innocent. I categorically disagree with the verdict that held them responsible for committing a grave crime.''

She said the Indian President, Mr. K.R. Narayanan, who set the pilots free, ``did what India's law enforcement bodies should have done in 1995.''

The five pilots, who were sentenced to life in February for dropping an arms cache over West Bengal in 1995, have all along maintained they did not know what was in the crates and that they were forced to drop them at gunpoint by a man calling himself Kim Peter Davy, who hired them to fly the shipment from Burgas, Bulgaria. They said Davy slipped past the Indian police when the plane landed in Mumbai and left them as scapegoats.

The Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, who is to visit India in October, hailed the pilots' release as a ``humane gesture that will contribute to the further positive development of relations between our two countries.''

Mrs. Moskalenko said she was prepared to defend the lawyers free of charge if Indian authorities allowed a Russian lawyer to represent them in the court of appeal. She said the pilots were ``unanimous'' in their resolve to ``go to the end'' to prove their innocence. The pilots, who had been living in Latvia as ``non-citizen residents'' after the breakup of the Soviet Union, need a formal acquittal to avoid legal problems in returning to Latvia to reunite with their families. While in jail, they were granted Russian citizenship and may now be banned from entering Latvia as foreigners convicted for a grave crime.

The lawyer said the International Committee for Humanitarian Support of the Convicted Pilots would shoot a documentary film that would tell the pilots' ``true story.''

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Section  : International
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