On a sunny summer's day recently in a provincial town on the banks of the Volga, a young entrepreneur was driving away from his house when two assassins, without masks, riddled his car with bullets at point-blank range, killing him and his bodyguard and seriously injuring his fianc?e.


Doctors, though, were able to save her. She was an extremely valuable witness, since she had seen the killers up close. One would expect that she would remember those faces for life. Down to the smallest detail. But when the police asked her to help them put together a sketch to catch the killers, she refused. I think she, like any normal person in her position, wanted retribution. But she also understood that the killers would be quick to take revenge against her. She chose to protect her life.


I asked employees at Moscow's Main Internal Affairs Administration if the police were really unable to guarantee witness safety. "We can," they answered, "but only for a short time." They told me how for one witness they rented a "safe" apartment. The witness was always accompanied by a bodyguard, and he was always followed by observers in a car. After the trial ended, though, the police told the witness, "Well, that ends our mission."


The witness, however, knew that the bandits' friends on the outside would be after him. And so he hid for another whole year: With his wife, he worked as a conductor on the trains to and from the Far East.


For several years now our detectives have been telling the government and parliament that we need a federal witness protection program. "Without such protection," Vladimir Rushailo, head of the regional administration on organized crime in Moscow, told me, "there cannot be full justice." What talk of justice can there be when assassins, without fear of the law and without even masking their faces, can shoot people in broad daylight, in front of witnesses?


Nonetheless, it cannot be claimed that the State Duma does not understand the paradox of having a law enforcement system without having a law on witness protection. The daily shootings and explosions on the streets of Moscow and in other cities, the murders of bankers, businessmen, entrepreneurs and even one deputy in parliament, Andrei Aidzerdzis, have finally driven our sluggish lawmakers to accept such a bill for its first reading.


This means it may be as long as three months to a year before the law is finally passed. Perhaps longer. For some incomprehensible reason, this bill has not been considered one of the most pressing issues at hand.


What foolish shortsightedness! Parliamentary deputies claim that they are rushing too much in passing so many laws: This bill, they say, must be thoroughly examined. For example, they are arguing over whether, as written in the bill, it would be possible for the witness not to appear in court at all, but to have his evidence (without revealing the witness's name) read aloud. Another version would use television to present the testimony, with all information on the witness being classified a state secret.


What remains unclear is how the constitutional rights of the accused will be preserved. He would not only be denied the right to face his accuser, but would also be unable to cross-examine him and to explore possible contradictions in his testimony.


Of course, the dangers here are clear. What if one of the witnesses is a professional informer or simply vindictive, slandering an innocent man? The current project would make it far too easy to use paid informers to fabricate a criminal case against anyone.


The United States, among other countries, already has a witness protection program. True, it is expensive. In this matter, though, we should heed the old Russian saying, "The miser pays twice." It would be better to pass such a law and create a long-term federal witness protection program than to continue paying everyday for the lack of such a law in innocent lives and rampant crime.


In the United States, a witness has the right not only to the complete protection of his life before, during and after the trial. At federal expense, he can -- having altered his name and even his appearance -- move to a different city, get an apartment and a job equal to that which he left. Similar measures are also taken for family members. All expenses involved in this are borne by the government. A specially created witness protection service takes full responsibility for the lives and well-being of the witnesses under its aegis.


The United States also has another law which, unfortunately, does not exist in our criminal code: plea bargaining. This allows members of criminal groups to assist actively in the investigation and to provide evidence against other gang members. In exchange, their sentences are reduced and their lives are protected by the government.


I recently asked an acquaintance at the internal affairs administration how much it would cost to create long-term witness protection in Russia. He thought about it and said: "No more than we're spending now to hide witnesses in apartments with around-the-clock bodyguards and other security. I'm sure that if we were to institute a special service, once we got it going, it would cost us about the same, if not less. Only the result would be different: Witnesses would no longer be paralyzed by fear for their lives, and their normal human desire for justice would take over."


We can only hope. Now it's up to the deputies of the State Duma.





Igor Gamayunov is an investigative reporter for Literaturnaya Gazeta. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.