MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI) – Online examinations of witnesses and victims may fasten preliminary investigations, as well as shorten times accused persons are kept in pretrial detention centers, Public Business Ombudsman, Co-Chair of Rost political party Alexander Khurudzhi believes.

Earlier, Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy Andrey Kutepov developed draft amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure envisaging that investigators had the right to interview witnesses, victims, or experts via video teleconferencing.

The move has been expected since long by all the parties of investigations and is urged by the pandemic, according to Khurudzhi.

The new procedure will facilitate shorter detentions and lower costs for all the parties, he observes, even if some sceptics are of a different opinion seeing certain negative aspects of this initiative; nevertheless, positive effects prevail, the Public Business Ombudsman believes. To support his proposal, Khurudzhi reminded that experts have already turned to Russia’s Business Ombudsman Boris Titov urging online interrogations as to entrepreneurs on the so called London List.