Gennadii Benditskii, a correspondent for the weekly \"Vremya,\" was acquitted on 17 March of libel charges. Asygat Zhabagin, head of the Republican Innovation Fund, sued Benditskii for libel in December 2003 over an investigative article the journalist wrote about the alleged disappearance of $1.5 million from the Kazakh Defense Ministry. The case was widely seen as an attempt to use the courts to muzzle an excessively inquisitive journalist. (Interfax-Kazakhstan)