Translated material
Fourth bench
The trial in the case of the assassination attempt on Anatoly Chubais will begin again
The Supreme Court (SC) of Russia yesterday overturned the acquittal of the Moscow Regional Court against retired GRU colonel Vladimir Kvachkov and former paratroopers Robert Yashin and Alexander Naydenov, accused of an attempt on the life of the head of RAO UES of Russia Anatoly Chubais. The case was sent for a new trial. What exactly was the reason for this remains unclear - the judges of the Supreme Court read only the operative part of the decision. But according to the Code of Criminal Procedure, such a decision could only be based on procedural violations.Thus, the process in the “Chubais case” has returned to the stage of preliminary hearings, and the Moscow Regional Court should begin forming a new jury bench - already the fourth in this process. Colonel Kvachkov and his comrades accepted the decision of the Supreme Court calmly, declaring their determination to again prove their innocence, and Mr. Chubais’s representative burst into applause.
The assassination attempt on Anatoly Chubais took place on March 17, 2005 in the area of the village of Zhavoronki, Odintsovo district, Moscow region, at the exit to the Minskoe highway. On the way of the motorcade of the head of RAO UES, a homemade bomb was detonated, and then the cars were fired upon. True, in the end no one was hurt.
Already on March 19, retired GRU colonel Vladimir Kvachkov was detained on suspicion of organizing a terrorist attack, and a little later two of his acquaintances - paratroopers Robert Yashin and Alexander Naydenov. In addition, the son of the colonel, Alexander Kvachkov, and the son of the former head of Rospechat, Boris Mironov, Ivan, were put on the wanted list. The prosecutor's office believed that they planned the assassination attempt on Mr. Chubais for extremist reasons and personal enmity. Energy workers at one time disconnected Mr. Kvachkov’s dacha from electricity for non-payment, and in addition, all the accused were not alien to nationalist views (Boris Mironov had recently been convicted of inciting national hatred, and Mr. Kvachkov had previously been a member of the “Military Power union"). As a result, Kvachkov, Yashin and Naydenov were charged with encroachment on the life of a government official (terrorist act), attempted murder, illegal possession of weapons and explosives, and intentional destruction or damage to property.
The process, which began back in May 2006, was completed only on the third attempt. At first, for several months they could not select a jury. When this happened, the board worked for only a few meetings, and it was dissolved. The second board existed a little longer, but in December last year it was dissolved. The reason for this was “force majeure circumstances” - it suddenly turned out that one of the jurors was registered at a drug dispensary. Since by this time there were no alternate jurors left (some jurors had filed challenges for various reasons), the panel again lost quorum. Against the backdrop of constant leapfrog with the jury, two more presiding officers were replaced in the trial, the parties constantly reproached each other for violations, filing petitions with mutual challenges. Kvachkov’s supporters periodically gathered under the walls of the court, calling him a “national hero” and singing patriotic songs and psalms. And Colonel Kvachkov himself gave a scandalous interview straight from the pre-trial detention center, in which he stated that an attempt on the life of a person like Anatoly Chubais cannot be considered a crime, openly calling him an “occupier.” At the same time, Mr. Kvachkov denied his involvement in the assassination attempt, arguing that it was not an assassination attempt, but simply a staging, and they are trying to sue him for his patriotic views.
The third jury, which returned a not guilty verdict, was selected in February of this year. She coped with her task, but given the constant scandals during the trial, the likelihood of the verdict being overturned initially seemed very high. At almost every meeting, the parties and the court exchanged mutual accusations of various violations, and the defendants themselves were not allowed to participate in the trial for several weeks due to bad behavior. Kvachkov, for example, was returned to the courtroom only for the court debate, after which he was finally able to speak to the jury. For five hours, as a teacher, from the point of view of a professional saboteur, which Mr. Kvachkov is, he “laid out” the investigation materials, telling the board why he considers everything that happened near the village of Zhavoronki to have been staged.
As a result, on July 5, the jury decided that Kvachkov, Yashin and Naydenov had nothing to do with the incident near the village of Zhavoronki, although they admitted the fact of the assassination attempt on Mr. Chubais, leaving the investigation to further understand who carried it out.
This outcome of the case did not satisfy either the victims or the state prosecution, who immediately announced their intention to appeal. As a result, two cassation complaints came to the Supreme Court - from Mr. Chubais’s guards, who followed his BMW in an escort car, who were also recognized as victims, and from the prosecutor’s office. Mr. Chubais himself, as promised, did not file a complaint, although he stated that this acquittal was a “miscarriage of justice.”
The absence of a complaint from the client did not prevent Chubais’ lawyer Andrei Shugaev from making an accusatory speech in the Supreme Court yesterday. His emotional speech was the most noticeable event in a very boring meeting. Mr. Shugaev convinced those gathered that the acquittal verdict was the result of the fact that the jury could not overcome the “everyday prejudice - Chubais is an enemy of the people,” that the jury tried Kvachkov and his comrades “not according to the law, but according to concepts.” Moreover, according to Mr. Shugaev, Chubais believes that in fact all this time they (the jury) were not judging Kvachkov, but him, Chubais.
However, these arguments could not influence the decision of the Supreme Court, since according to the law, a sentence passed on the basis of a jury verdict can be overturned only due to procedural violations. And the cassation appeals did not say at all what Mr. Shugaev said. They noted three main complaints about the process. In particular, the complaints drew attention to the fact that a member of the jury selected in the “Chubais case” number 61 allegedly participated in the verdict in another case during the previous year, which is prohibited by law. The prosecutor's office also believed that the court incorrectly formulated the board's questions, and during the trial, in addition, unacceptable comments were made about the methods of obtaining evidence, voiced by the defense in front of the jury. It is still unclear which of these arguments the Supreme Court took into account. But Mr. Kvachkov’s defense noted that all of them are very ambiguous from a legal point of view.
Lawyers believe that the trial stipulated that a juror could participate in the trial if the calendar year changed. The prosecutor's office is confident that it is correct to interpret this paragraph of the Code of Criminal Procedure as “after 365 days have passed from the date of rendering a different verdict.” But there are no precise interpretations of this clause in the law. The same goes for wording questions for jurors. The prosecutor's office insists that three questions did not accurately indicate the period of preparation of the crime. Judge Valikova considered that it was enough to mention the full dates in the previous question, from which these three followed. But this, according to the defense, is also not written down anywhere. The third point - about the lawyers' comments about the inadmissibility of obtaining evidence using threats, planting drugs and ammunition - is as follows. The presiding judge at the trial cut off all unacceptable statements made in front of the jury and asked the jury not to take them into account when making their decision. But whether they took this into account or not is impossible to verify, and how to determine which party is right in this case, according to the defense, is also unclear.
Vladimir Kvachkov himself outlined all this in his speech yesterday. Although at times he also switched to the personality of Mr. Chubais, he spoke calmly, with the caveat that these were only his personal beliefs. The lawyers who spoke after him actually had nothing to add, except perhaps to clarify some articles and sheets of the case file to which the colonel referred.
It took the court just over an hour to make a decision on the case. All this time, Kvachkov and his comrades (besides Kvachkov’s wife, the only relatives in the room were Boris Mironov and his wife) were calm. They also calmly listened to the decision of the Supreme Court: “The verdict of the Moscow Regional Court is cancelled, the case is sent for a new trial by a new composition of the court.” The last words were spoken in complete silence, which was literally broken by lawyer Shugaev with his applause.
Already on the way out of the hall, he stated “that this was a fair decision that he did not expect.” In turn, Mr. Kvachkov said “that now there was a trial by jury, and Chubais just proved that he is the boss here too.” Nevertheless, according to Mr. Kvachkov, he is ready to once again prove his innocence to the jury.