Translated material
Jury under pressure
Participants in the trial of police officers were frightened by nationalists
There is a new scandal surrounding the jury trial. The Moscow Regional Prosecutor's Office resumed the investigation of the case, initiated under two articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - obstruction of justice and coercion to give or evade testimony. The investigation became aware of facts when the jury received threats of physical harm if an undesirable verdict was rendered. These events are related to the trial of two police officers from the Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Dolgoprudny, who were accused of abuse of power, falsification of evidence and hooliganism. At the same time, the process was accompanied by a whole series of emergency situations - the murder of one judge of the Dolgoprudnensky City Court, an attempt on the life of another and the shelling of the apartment of the city prosecutor.We are talking about the events of February-July of this year, when a hearing was held in the Moscow Regional Court in the case of two employees of the Dolgoprudny police department, Valery Blokhin and Alexey Konovalenko. They were accused of exceeding their authority, falsifying evidence and beating three detained Azerbaijanis. Blokhin, in addition, was also accused of shelling the apartment of Dolgoprudny prosecutor Yevgeny Yatsentyuk.
In early July, a jury acquitted the policemen, but the Moscow Region prosecutor's office immediately filed a protest. In particular, the prosecution believes that the jury was pressured by representatives of the Orthodox community who sang psalms outside the courthouse. In addition, according to the prosecutor's office, the jury went to the deliberation room to reach a verdict without turning off their mobile phones, but they could receive calls demanding a certain decision. But even before the verdict, the prosecutor's office began to receive statements from jurors and witnesses that they had received threatening letters. All these anonymous letters were printed on the letterhead of the Russian National Unity (RNE), and in them unknown persons threatened to kill witnesses, jurors and their relatives if Blokhin and Konovalenko were convicted.
This story began back in 2001, when police officers Valery Konovalenko and Valery Blokhin detained three Azerbaijanis at the Vegeta vegetable base for violating the passport regime. Ten cartridges were allegedly found in possession of one of them, named Aliev. The detainees wrote a complaint to the prosecutor's office that the police beat them and planted cartridges. And in January 2002, police officers were charged, and Valery Blokhin was even arrested. He spent six months in a pre-trial detention center, and then was released on his own recognizance, since during all this time not a single investigative action was carried out. And only in 2004 the trial began in the Dolgoprudny court. The case, which was led by Judge Natalya Urlina, received wide publicity after Valery Blokhin gave an interview on the TV show “Russian House” and complained that his case was fabricated by employees of his own police department, since he prevented them from “protecting” local drug dealers and bandits. Spontaneous rallies began to be held in front of the courthouse, in which members of the RNU, representatives of the Orthodox community and the independent police union took part. To avoid unrest, court employees called in riot police, and the meeting was dispersed, and judge Zhanna Radchenko even convicted several RNE activists of administrative offenses and ordered them to pay a fine.
In May 2004, a 400 g TNT bomb exploded in a Mercedes car owned by Ms. Radchenko in a parking lot. Fortunately, the explosive device did not go off completely, the car did not suffer any major damage, and the judge herself was not nearby at that moment. A month later, unknown persons fired at the apartment of city prosecutor Yevgeny Yatsentyuk - they fired at the windows of the bedroom and kitchen, but the prosecutor himself was not at home at that moment either. And on August 9 at 9.00 am, judge Natalya Urlina was shot in the back from a sawn-off hunting rifle on the street. Two days later, Valery Blokhin was arrested again. He was charged with shelling the prosecutor's apartment, qualifying it as hooliganism, and they tried to accuse him of involvement in the murder of a judge, but no evidence was found for this. As it turned out, shortly before the shelling incident, Prosecutor Yatsentyuk received the following anonymous message: “The incident with Radchenko was the work of RNE, the same thing awaits you.” The prosecutor immediately identified Valery Blokhin as the author of the message based on his handwriting, and a preliminary examination revealed some similarities with the suspect’s handwriting.
The case was transferred to the Moscow Regional Court, and at the request of the accused Blokhin and Konovalenko, a jury participated in its consideration. Blokhin's lawyer Valery Glushenkov said that the trial was in full swing when the jury and witnesses informed the court that they began to receive threatening letters. “The letters were printed on RNE letterhead. At the same time, the jury was called upon to “make a fair verdict,” and the witnesses were threatened with death if they testified against Blokhin and Konovalenko,” said Mr. Glushenkov. At the same time, the lawyer denies involvement in the anonymous messages of RNU activists and suggests that completely different people were behind the threats: “Blokhin was under arrest, and such letters, quite obviously, not only did not benefit him, but could have caused harm. Therefore, I consider this a deliberate provocation on the part of those who were interested in a guilty verdict. “I immediately told Judge Elena Snegireva that these anonymous letters should be sent to the prosecutor’s office to initiate a criminal case.” Mr. Glushenkov believes that the authors of the letters are the same people who “fabricated the Blokhin case” and who planted the anonymous letter on prosecutor Yatsentyuk. “This was beneficial to the former deputy head of the department for educational work, Saifutdin Galimov, the head of the investigation department of the Dolgoprudny police department, Namik Rashidov, and his brother, the owner of several retail outlets in the city, Natik Rashidov, because Blokhin and Konovalenko interfered with their “business.” They wanted Blokhin to stop interfering in their dubious affairs,” says Mr. Glushenkov. According to him, all of them were witnesses for the prosecution and claimed that anonymous letters were also sent to them. “However, for some reason they were not afraid to come to court and although they did not answer the court’s questions orally, they carefully listened to their testimony given at the preliminary investigation,” the lawyer said.
Last Monday, the regional prosecutor's office questioned Valery Blokhin in the case of pressure on the jury. “They called me as a witness. They asked if I was a member of RNE. No more questions were asked,” said Mr. Blokhin, who, after the jury’s acquittal, filed a lawsuit to reinstate him in the police service, because he was fired for discreditable reasons.
The Moscow Regional Prosecutor's Office confirmed the fact of the investigation, but declined to comment. In any case, now that a criminal case has been opened, the likelihood that the acquittal will be overturned in the Supreme Court is very high.