Revenge

Grigory Pasko will again become a defendant

The trial in the case of military journalist Grigory Pasko will begin from the very beginning - this was decided by the Supreme Court yesterday. Moreover, the new trial could end with a real prison sentence for the journalist who is now at large.

Mr. Pasko was charged with treason for passing allegedly classified material about the fleet to Japanese media. However, a military court held in July 1999 reclassified the charge from “high treason” to “exceeding official authority”, sentenced Pasko to 3 years in prison and immediately released the journalist, who had served almost two years behind bars, under an amnesty. Nevertheless, he filed a cassation appeal to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, demanding that the sentence be overturned. The prosecution also lodged its protest. It also insisted on canceling the sentence, however, with a different goal - to take revenge and get Pasko convicted of high treason (that is, without applying an amnesty).

The court granted both requests.

After a closed meeting, the Military Collegium, chaired by Major General of Justice Lev Zakharov, overturned the sentence and sent the journalist’s case for retrial to the military court of the Pacific Fleet. According to the Supreme Court, the proceedings were conducted one-sidedly, and the court’s conclusions did not correspond to the factual circumstances of the case. In particular, no examination of the degree of secrecy of the transferred materials was carried out. And besides, it is still unclear whether Pasko caused harm to the state by his actions.

The parties disagreed in their assessment of yesterday's decision. The representative of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, Sergei Adonin, said that he was satisfied with it. But Grigory Pasko himself regarded it as a “death sentence.” According to him, the regional FSB Directorate and the Far Eastern prosecutor's office have already promised that they intend to seek more stringent measures. The journalist's lawyer, Anatoly Pyshkin, believes that the court may return to the issue of the preventive measure for his client. In other words, Grigory Pasko could be taken into custody again. At the very least, he faces another protracted trial. Anatoly Pyshkin expects that the next decision in the Pasko case may be made no earlier than in a year and a half.

Philip STERKIN