Translated material
Route to freedom
Disgraced security officer Mikhail Trepashkin returned home from prison
Former FSB colonel Mikhail Trepashkin served his sentence for disclosing state secrets and was released last Friday from penal colony IK-13, located near Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk region. Arriving in Yekaterinburg, the disgraced security officer immediately told reporters that he intended to seek a review of the verdict in his case and prove that it was fabricated. In the evening of the same day, Mr. Trepashkin flew to Moscow. And today he will hold a meeting with human rights activists from the public committee “In Defense of Trepashkin.”Former KGB officer, former FSB colonel, former lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, as the Vremya Novostey newspaper already reported, became famous in 1998. Together with several colleagues from the intelligence services, including Alexander Litvinenko, he spoke at a press conference and accused the FSB of forcing its employees to commit murders of businessmen. The “order” was allegedly for Boris Berezovsky. After his dismissal from the authorities, Alexander Litvinenko fled the country and, settling in London, continued to expose his former colleagues until his death in November last year from poisoning with the radioactive substance polonium.
Mikhail Trepashkin remained in his homeland, became a lawyer and, like Litvinenko, actively fought the security officers. He helped the fugitive write a scandalous book called “The FSB is Exploding Russia” and, together with State Duma deputy and human rights activist Sergei Kovalev, investigated the explosions of residential buildings in 1999. The investigation ended in 2001, when Mr. Trepashkin himself became accused of committing a criminal offense.
The main military prosecutor's office accused him of disclosing state secrets. According to the prosecution, “in 1993-1997, having access to documents and information containing state secrets, with the goal of using them for subsequent disclosure, contrary to and to the detriment of the interests of the service, he systematically removed official documents, and also secretly copied operational and analytical information USB (internal security management. - Ed. ) to your personal floppy disks and computer system unit." In May 2004, the Moscow District Military Court agreed with the accusation that the colonel used secret data to achieve the goals of “personal interest” - filing complaints against the actions of FSB officials and writing memoirs. For this, Mr. Trepashkin received four years in a penal colony. A year later, the court in Dmitrov near Moscow added another year of imprisonment to him for illegal possession of weapons, but the Moscow Regional Court later overturned this sentence. However, it was on this charge that he was arrested in December 2003, although before that he was already under recognizance not to leave the place. Mr. Trepashkin himself and his defense have repeatedly stated that they regard his persecution as revenge on the part of former state security colleagues for his revelations.
After Trepashkin was sent to a settlement near Nizhny Tagil, human rights activists immediately declared him a political prisoner and constantly made statements about the deteriorating health of the convict, the failure to provide him with medical care, and that other prisoners were threatening to kill him. The authorities, for their part, accused the former FSB colonel of violating discipline and tightened the conditions of detention, transferring him from the settlement to a general regime colony. Trepashkin, with the help of his lawyers, began to sue, seeking to have this decision declared illegal. As a result, the case reached the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which in July adopted a ruling on Mr. Trepashkin’s first complaint and ordered the Russian authorities to pay him compensation in the amount of 3 thousand euros for the fact that he had to sit in terrible unsanitary conditions during pre-trial detention in the Dmitrov temporary detention center and the Volokolamsk pre-trial detention center.
The former FSB officer's term of imprisonment expired on November 30, and on the same day he was released, although the prosecutor's office asked to remain in prison for another 19 days. This is exactly how much time Trepashkin managed to spend at home after he was first released on parole in 2005, and then this decision was canceled and the unfortunate man was sent back to the colony. The Sverdlovsk Regional Court in mid-November refused to satisfy the prosecutor's request.
Mikhail Trepashkin left the colony gates early in the morning of November 30, a full four hours ahead of schedule. Thus, the administration of IK-13 managed to avoid the excitement - numerous journalists and human rights activists who came to greet the released “political prisoner” were forced to leave with nothing. And Mikhail Trepashkin went to Yekaterinburg on a regular minibus. “Mikhail Ivanovich looks good, quite cheerful,” Mikhail Krieger, chairman of the public committee “In Defense of Trepashkin,” told Vremya Novostey. - And he endured the flight (to Moscow. - Ed. ) well. He's home now."
Although Mikhail Trepashkin is indeed already at home in Moscow, he has no intention of resting at all, but is already working hard on how to achieve rehabilitation. “There are many ways,” he told a Vremya Novostei correspondent yesterday. “One of them is a legal examination of the verdict for compliance with the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code, the fairness of the trial and the compliance of the criminal acts charged with me with the Criminal Code.” This examination, according to Mr. Trepashkin, has already been carried out by several specialists, professors, doctors of law, who noted that there was no crime in the actions of the ex-FSB officer. In addition, as lawyer Elena Liptser said yesterday, the ECHR has already completed communication on Mikhail Trepashkin’s second complaint against Russia, concerning the issue of fairness and validity of the sentence passed against him. “If the European Court rules in favor of Trepashkin, then this may subsequently become the basis for reviewing the case based on newly discovered circumstances,” Ms. Liptser said.
Mikhail Trepashkin, although he has served his sentence and does not owe the state (at least for now) anything more, is unlikely to be able to continue his professional activities as a lawyer over the next few years. Only after three years will his criminal record be cleared and he will again be able to regain his legal status.