"Didn't hit, didn't hit"

Notary Sadretdinov, acquitted in the Khlebnikov case, was again acquitted

Today the Moscow City Court will announce an acquittal in the scandalous case of Moscow notary Fail Sadretdinov. At the end of last week, the jury decided by a majority of votes (ten to two) that Mr. Sadretdinov was not guilty of throwing excrement at the investigator, and therefore did not insult a government official and did not spoil the documents (two volumes of the criminal case). In addition, the jury acquitted the notary of contempt of court, which he allegedly showed during a meeting to decide whether to extend his arrest.

As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported , this unusual case was initiated against notary Fail Sadretdinov last summer. The accused himself called it the result of an “open war” being waged between him and a “gang of investigators.” In May 2006, along with two Chechens, Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhaev, he was acquitted by a jury of complicity in a criminal ring whose members killed American journalist Paul Klebnikov. The “principled position” that the notary took in connection with the charges brought against him became, according to him, the reason for the prosecution of him by the investigative authorities. Five days after Sadretdinov, acquitted by the jury, was released, he was arrested again, accused of apartment fraud and tried. In January last year, the Preobrazhensky District Court sentenced him to nine years in prison. Soon the prosecutor's office accused Sadretdinov of another apartment scam. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court overturned the acquittal in the “Khlebnikov case” and sent the case to the Moscow City Court for review. However, the process was never destined to begin - the case was returned to the prosecutor's office to eliminate shortcomings and remains there to this day.

In any case, the investigation still had grounds to keep the notary in prison and interrogate him at any time they wanted. This is what they drove Sadretdinov to, literally to the point of white heat. For the first time, the prisoner rebelled against the investigator, whose tone seemed too offensive to him, in December 2006. Then, as Vremya Novostey learned, in response to rudeness, he sprayed the investigator with urine.

Another incident occurred in the summer. An investigator for particularly important cases of the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office, Oleg Martynov, came to Matrosskaya Tishina to familiarize the former notary with the materials of his new fraud case. Soon the defendant's lawyer, Ruslan Koblev, arrived. A few minutes after the start of the conversation, Sadretdinov asked to go to the toilet. And he returned from there with a package, which he immediately threw in the investigator’s face. The room was filled with a stench, and the face, clothing of the prosecutor’s employee and two volumes of the newly-minted criminal case were stained with “feces.”

The hooligan was sent to a punishment cell, and a couple of days later he started a new scandal. In the Zamoskvoretsky court, at a meeting on the issue of extending his arrest, Sadretdinov, as the judge and prosecutor later complained, was rude and yelled at them, tried to throw a hanger at the prosecutor, and then the leg he tore off from the dock. Only the guards, who dragged away the enraged notary, saved him from the sad consequences. One of them was allegedly seriously injured - he complained of a bruise on the fourth finger of his left hand.

In connection with these two incidents, a case was opened under four articles of the Criminal Code - the use of violence against a government official, insulting this representative, damaging documents and contempt of court. The last charge gave Sadretdinov the right to ask for a jury trial, which he took advantage of and was right. The case was considered behind closed doors as a secret, and the public was not able to enjoy the details of the process. Although the spectacle must have been quite interesting. In particular, as Vremya Novostei learned, an investigative experiment was even conducted at the trial. Sadretdinov poured ketchup into a piece of paper to demonstrate to the jury that if it had been excrement, it would have stained not just one sheet of the criminal case file, as stated in the indictment, but much more.

However, other defense arguments became the decisive argument for the assessors. In particular, as already reported, the bag that Sadretdinov brought from the toilet was rolled up from the challenge to investigator Martynov, written by the accused that day. “The investigator suggested that my client wipe himself with this tap. And he carried out this instruction. But he didn’t beat him or smear him with excrement, which was proven in court,” said lawyer Anna Stavitskaya. The defendant himself, as follows from the case materials, said that he was forced to such an act by the rudeness of the investigator, who brought him to a nervous breakdown. As for his “disrespectful” behavior in court, the notary explained this act by saying that the judge and the prosecutor refused to invite a lawyer to the meeting, and then discussed the issue of extending the arrest as if the person who was directly concerned was not there at all. But as soon as Sadretdinov became indignant, he was immediately dragged out of the hall and beaten. By the way, the Moscow City Court subsequently declared the decision of the Zamoskvoretsky Court illegal and overturned it. The notary, who has been in prison for almost three years, also complained about the unbearable conditions of detention, which seriously affected his health - for the slightest offense they were thrown into a stuffy punishment cell infested with insects and rats, and stuffed with psychotropic pills. Twice he ended up in intensive care, and each time, after keeping him in the hospital for one day, despite the doctors’ prohibitions, he was taken straight back to the punishment cell on a stretcher.

And the jury understood and believed Sadretdinov, not considering his offenses to be crimes, but they were not impressed by the complaints of the prosecutors, guards and judges whom he insulted.

Ekaterina BUTORINA