Translated material
"They'll tell you everything"
State security interests do not fit within the law
The Moscow District Military Court (MoVS) yesterday announced the verdict in the case of Igor Arsentyev, an employee of one of the research and testing institutes of the Ministry of Defense, who was accused of transferring secret information to one of the foreign intelligence services. He was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in a maximum security colony and stripped of the rank of lieutenant colonel. However, the main result of the trial was not the verdict itself, but the precedent procedure for its announcement. In violation of the norms of the Constitution and the article of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) of the Russian Federation on the transparency of legal proceedings, none of the journalists who came to the court were allowed to read even the operative part of the verdict. This was explained by the interests of state security.The trial in the case of 52-year-old candidate of military sciences Igor Arsentyev began in June of this year. According to the investigation, from 2002 to 2004, an employee of the “closed” research institute, Arsentiev, was on a business trip abroad and led a group of military scientists working on electronic warfare (EW) issues for the ground forces. There, according to the prosecution, the lieutenant colonel met employees of the local special service, to whom he began to provide methodological and practical assistance. Arsentyev was arrested in June last year, then he was charged under Art. 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (high treason).
“At the request of a security officer, Arsentyev printed out and handed over to him a report on the first stage of research work, that is, information that constitutes a state secret,” said Alexander Minchanovsky, press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, yesterday. The representative of the court emphasized that the actions of the lieutenant colonel could lead to negative consequences, “namely: the assessment by the military leadership of a foreign state of certain areas of plans for the technical improvement of electronic warfare, as well as the creation of an electronic warfare structure according to the Russian scheme without significant costs for scientific research.” Arsentyev himself did not admit his guilt.
Mobile court hearings in the Arsentyev case took place in the Lefortovo pretrial detention center. The process itself was traditionally closed for reasons of secrecy. The lawyers were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding investigation materials. But the court decided to read out the sentence to the lieutenant colonel in the building of the Ministry of Military Internal Affairs - perhaps based precisely on the fact that according to the law, including according to Art. 241 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, “the court’s verdict is announced in an open court session,” and if the case is considered behind closed doors, then “only the introductory and operative part of the verdict may be announced.”
However, media representatives were not allowed into the hall at all yesterday. At the same time, no one has been able to clearly explain why a blatant violation of the law is taking place in the courthouse. A representative of the FSB Central Election Commission, who was in court, only persistently repeated that all actions were carried out in the “interests of the state”, and intelligence officers were called upon to ensure a “high level of security”. “They will tell you everything, they will provide you with digital photographs,” the FSB officer reassured the journalists.
Journalists learned about the MOVS decision only from the words of the court’s press secretary, Alexander Minchanovsky. He said that the state prosecution asked the court to sentence the defendant to 12 years in a maximum security colony, but he received only nine years. In addition, Arsentyev was stripped of his military rank of lieutenant colonel. The court also decided to force him to be observed by a psychiatrist, since the defendant was diagnosed with “schizotypal personality disorder.”
Representatives of which country Arsentyev provided services could not find out even after the verdict. According to state prosecutor Ramil Shakurov, who also spoke with journalists, it is too early to talk about this, since the announcement of the state could lead to negative consequences for Russia, since “the counterintelligence operation continues.” At the same time, the prosecutor expressed satisfaction with the length of the sentence. Arsentyev’s lawyer, Elena Lebedeva-Romanova, was also pleased that the court took into account the mitigating circumstances and applied a sentence below the lower threshold. However, she did not rule out filing an appeal against the verdict.
Yesterday, no one in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself began to comment on the situation with the violation of the principle of openness when announcing the verdict. Press Secretary of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation Pavel Odintsov, for his part, noted: “I don’t know all the circumstances and details of this situation. But, focusing on the legislation, I can say that in the case of closed trials, the operative parts of all decisions and sentences of judges must be announced publicly.”
Well-known lawyers, whom the Vremya Novostei newspaper asked to comment on the situation, assessed it unequivocally. Lawyer Genrikh Padva said that there have been no such precedents in his practice. Lawyer Mikhail Burmistrov considered that, “undoubtedly, in some situations the court may decide to restrict access to the courtroom for some of those wishing to attend the reading of the verdict.” “However, this is possible only if the premises are simply not able to accommodate everyone,” he said. - If the court does not allow anyone to read at least the operative part of the verdict, this is already a violation of the basic principle of openness, ignorance and disrespect for citizens and representatives of the media. In such situations, the judicial system is discredited. If the court, which guards the law, ignores it, then what can it demand from ordinary citizens?”