vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #607 / Special reports / Reading article...

Primorye resident Alexander Kashin, who was partially paralyzed in a car accident which involved former U.S. Consul General to the Russian Far East Douglas Kent in Vladivostok in 1998, went on a hunger-strike Monday as a ‘protest against the disregard of law by U.S. authorities’. For ten years, Kashin has been unsuccessful in trying to receive monetary compensation from Kent.

Kashin, 32, suffered a severe neck injury which left him paralyzed from the chest down in October 1998, when the car in which he was a passenger collided with Kent’s Chevy sport utility vehicle. The police ruled that the diplomat was responsible for the collision but Russian authorities failed to prosecute him criminally because of his diplomatic immunity. Shortly after the accident, Kent left Vladivostok.

Despite American courts three times declaring 54-year-old Kent responsible for the accident, in August 2006 a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the diplomat may not be sued by Kashin due to Kent’s immunity.

In 2006, Kashin addressed U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns, during his visit to Primorye. Burns showed consent for the disabled man and promised to forward an official request to the U.S. State Department regarding Kashin’s case.

However, the long-time legal argument of Kashin and his American lawyer John Gallagher against Kent was closed in August 2007, which makes further legal proceedings into the accident, as well as compensation for injuries, impossible.

“In November 2007 I received a call from the Consulate General saying those documents were passed to the U.S. Department of State,” Kashin told reporters of The Vladivostok newspaper. “However, no further actions followed,” he added.

Kashin, who is a resident of Primorye’s town of Bolshoy Kamen and lives with his parents, both pensioners, called the passed ten years ‘a nightmare”.

“I have only one thing left – to count on out of court means, for example on diplomatic assistance from Russian authorities,” he said.