Homemade sabotage

The investigation into the bombing of a train from Grozny has been completed

The Moscow Regional Prosecutor's Office yesterday transferred to the Moscow Regional Court the materials of the criminal case regarding the bombing of the Grozny-Moscow passenger train in June last year. Two of his defendants - Muscovites Vladimir Vlasov and Mikhail Klevachev - at the end of last week received an indictment - the result of an investigation carried out by the prosecutor's office and the FSB. The terrorist attack, which hospitalized five people on Russia's Independence Day, was initially attributed to members of extremist organizations. But then investigators came to the conclusion that the explosion was carried out by lone craftsmen. According to investigators, Klevachev and Vlasov, who held nationalist views, specifically set June 12, 2005 as the day the crime was committed. In this way they wanted to “violate public safety and frighten the population of non-Slavic nationality.” True, as it turned out after the emergency, the bulk of the passengers on the Grozny-Moscow train were “native Russians” - employees of the special services and other government agencies returning from business trips to Chechnya.

Train No. 382 Grozny-Moscow was blown up at about 7 a.m. on June 12, 2005 on the Paveletskaya railway, about 150 km from Moscow, near the Uzunovo station. As a result of the explosion, four cars derailed. 42 people were injured, five of whom were hospitalized. As FSB experts later found out, a non-sheathed explosive device with a capacity of about 3 kg in TNT equivalent, made in a homemade way, using ordinary household electrical switches, was placed under the rails.

On June 30, two Muscovites were detained on suspicion of involvement in sabotage - 48-year-old businessman Vladimir Vlasov and 47-year-old foreman of the State Unitary Enterprise "Gormost" Mikhail Klevachev. Both were accused of terrorism committed by a group of persons in a preliminary conspiracy, which entailed grave consequences in the form of paralyzing the work of transport, of attempted murder of two or more persons in a generally dangerous way by a group of persons in a preliminary conspiracy on grounds of nationality, hatred and enmity.

After the investigation was completed, the defendants’ lawyers filed a petition in which they asked to stop the criminal prosecution of their clients, since they believed that they were not involved in the acts they were accused of and that their actions did not constitute a crime. But the investigator refused, handing them copies of the indictment at the same time, and 25 volumes of the criminal case were transferred to the court. The date for the first hearing has not yet been determined. But the defenders have already announced that they will request a trial by jury, insist on removing from the case a number of evidence obtained, in their opinion, in violation of procedural norms, and returning the case to the prosecutor's office for revision.

In addition, according to Vremya Novostei, the lawyers intend to demand a re-examination of Klevachev by a forensic psychiatric examination. They doubt the adequacy of his actions, based on the fact that back in the 90s, Klevachev received a severe shell shock in Yugoslavia, and just the other day, after another interrogation in a temporary detention center at Paveletsky Station, he attempted suicide. Having learned that the investigation was ending, and his point of view on the events of June 12, 2005 was not reflected as he would like, Klevachev opened his veins. As a result, he had to be hospitalized.

Both the prosecution and the defense are confident of their victory in the upcoming trial. The prosecutor's office considers the main evidence against the accused to be chemicals and extremist literature seized from them during searches. Lawyers believe that this is not proof that it was Klevachev and Vlasov who blew up the train. According to unofficial information, about a hundred examinations have been carried out in the case, including such exotic ones as the analysis of dog hair on electrical tape found at the scene of the explosion, but none of them, as far as is known, has given a clear answer as to whether the suspects were at the crime scene .

Eduard LOMOVTSEV