MOSCOW, March 25 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Ostankinsky District Court will proceed with a defamation suit filed by the Russian Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky against ex-Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times (FT) Charles Clover on March 26, the defendant’s lawyer Ilnur Sharapov has told RAPSI. 

Zhirinovsky in his lawsuit asks the court to declare information published in Clover’s book “Black Wind, White Snow” discrediting his honor, dignity and business reputation. In particular, the MP has got peeved with a phrase calling Zhirinovsky an agent for the Committee for State Security (KGB).

The lawmaker also demands 1 million rubles ($16,000) in compensation for moral harm from the defendant and refutation of the said information.

Clover, who is currently the Financial Times China correspondent, in turn insists that he has a confirmation of the plaintiff’s links to KGB citing the 1994 news conference of then Turkey’s envoy to the U.S. Nuzhet Kandemir, who told journalists that Zhirinovsky was arrested and deported from Turkey in 1969 for the communist propaganda and espionage. At that time, he also called the leader of LDPR a KGB agent.