Under the black mask

How is the investigation into the murder of Markelov and Baburova

The arrest of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova suspected of murder, and even on the eve of the President's message, caused a lot of talk. Someone, as representatives of anti-fascists, is sure: “it’s them”, someone, on the contrary, is convinced that they “took it by the date”, others say: “let's wait for the evidence.” So far, there is a confession of the main accused, Nikita Tikhonov, who seems to take all the blame on himself. But the investigation is looking for a third. Where - found out The New Times
Searches and raids are going on all over Moscow. On November 12, the turn came to the ex-head of the DPNI Alexander Belov-Potkin. His brother, the leader of the Moscow branch of the organization, Vladimir Basmanov, answered the calls. “At 7 am, the search began at my place. Three employees of the operational-search bureau of the main department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Central Federal District and one from the Moscow Center for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs arrived. Several books were confiscated – monk Athanasius, leader of the National Power Party Sevastyanov, T-shirts with DPNI symbols and his wife’s laptop, Basmanov told The New Times. “They presented a sanction (for a search) of the Protvinsky City Court and a petition from the investigator for particularly important cases of the Investigative Committee at the Prosecutor’s Office for the Moscow Region, Snezhana Kolobova.” The petition, according to Basmanov, stated that the search was being conducted because he "may be involved in illegal activities." “As I understand it, six months ago in the city of Protvino, some teenagers beat up migrant workers, guest workers, and allegedly we have something to do with this,” Vladimir said. Alexander Belov was interrogated that day from 13:00 to 2:00 in the morning, and the next day the interrogation continued. "Now I'm on my way to investigator Kolobova," Belov told The New Times on November 13. “As far as I understand, two of these teenagers in Protvino said that they were members of the DPNI, and that I told them in person: we need to arm ourselves.” The day before, investigators also visited the Invest-Stroy company, whose director was Ivan Lebedev, one of the leaders of the DPNI, who died in a car accident in December 2008.

The wave has gone
Even earlier, as The New Times wrote in a previous issue, operatives interrogated Ilya Goryachev, leader of the ultra-right organization Russian Image. “Seven hours in a one-room apartment were looking for weapons and ammunition,” Goryachev told The New Times. “As a result, they found a laptop and an iPhone, which they took away and delivered with me to the department.” Goryachev is an old friend of Tikhonov: they studied together at the history department of Moscow State University, worked together in the pro-Kremlin newspaper Reaction, and then in Argumenty Nedeli.

Another classmate of theirs, who now works for a prestigious foreign firm and therefore asked not to be named, told The New Times: “Nikita comes from a good Moscow family, dad is a regular military man. If I had chosen a career not as a journalist, but as a scientist, then, probably, I would have already been known. For his diploma on the topic “The roots of Chechen separatism. The First Chechen War "Tikhonov received "five" and was recommended for graduate school. But instead of graduate school, Tikhonov and Goryachev founded the almanac "Russian Image", and in 2004 they registered it with the Ministry of Press.

In those same years, Tikhonov actively participated in the activities of the Spartak fan association with the self-explanatory name Stormtroopers. A well-organized, disciplined far-right movement grew up on the basis of the Russian Obraz magazine (it was no coincidence that the nationalist and previously banned group Kolovrat played at their rally on November 4), and besides, with good connections in the Kremlin.
Activists of the Antifa movement are not surprised that the detainees are from well-to-do Moscow families, with higher humanitarian education, as a rule. “About five years ago, the process of transformation of the Nazi movement began: now there are fewer classical outcasts and more and more outwardly prosperous, educated young people,” one of the Moscow anti-fascists told The New Times. - Those who do not stupidly get into a fight for the sake of a fight, but can bring some kind of ideological basis under their actions. A unique situation in a sense: on the one hand, serial killers, on the other hand, socially adapted citizens, confident that they are waging war for some sacred idea.

Bet on the image

As a source close to the presidential administration told The New Times, the Kremlin "stakes" on the "Russian Image" a year ago. After a criminal case was initiated against the leader of the DPNI Alexander Belov, creative heads from the presidential administration began to look for a leader or organization around which right-wing radical youth could unite and which could thus be kept under control. And if necessary, use it for your own purposes. As they say, Vladislav Surkov eventually turned his attention to the almanac "Russian Image": quite literate texts, not without irony, and the authors are all graduates of prestigious universities. “When it turned out that the magazine was published with its own money and no one was behind it, the Kremlin decided to subdue it,” says an AP source. True, Tikhonov was no longer in the magazine at that time: “I lost contact with him in 2006,” says Goryachev, “and continued to work on the magazine alone.” Tikhonov, as we already wrote, was on the run: he is suspected of involvement in the murder of anti-fascist Alexander Ryukhin. True, he was never put on the wanted list. Why is a mystery. But Moscow friends did not advise Tikhonov to appear in the capital. He appeared in Moscow exactly on the eve of the Russian March, on November 3, and was immediately detained. Then they took his girlfriend Evgenia Khasis.
“Earlier, police officers often turned a blind eye to the crimes of nationalists, the authorities were not particularly interested in the fate of janitors-guest workers. There were trials of gopniks who, after drinking beer, beat someone, but that was the end of it,” says one of the Moscow anti-fascists (on condition of anonymity, like the rest of his colleagues in the anti-fascist movement: they are a constant object of attack by nationalists. — The New Times). But the high-profile murders of recent years have forced us to reconsider this position. Over the past year there have been a lot of landings among nationalists. First, they cleaned up the Internet talkers, then through them they began to reach out to more serious leaders.”

Already on November 5, Tikhonov made a confession. What helped him is unknown. Lawyer Yevgeny Skripelev does not make contact with journalists and relatives of the person under investigation, and his parents are not yet allowed to see his son either. They are looking for a new lawyer for Tikhonov, but the lawyers consider the case “failed” and do not want to take it on. They turned to the well-known lawyer Igor Trunov, but he appointed an unaffordable fee for his services, which, translated from a lawyer, means a polite refusal. No one is allowed to visit Yevgenia Khasis, but on Wednesday, November 11, the transfer was allowed: she was given warm clothes and food in Lefortovo.
Before her arrest, Khasis actively participated in the activities of the Russian Verdict center. On the Internet, it is called "a subsidiary project of the nationalist organization" Russian Image ". They position themselves as independent human rights activists. “Zhenya monitored all cases under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity”),” project coordinator Alexei Baranovsky told The New Times. Russian Verdict has hired two lawyers for Khasis, but not one of them is allowed to see her yet. Igor Krasnov, who led the investigation against Ivan Mironov, who was accused of attempting to assassinate Anatoly Chubais, was appointed investigator in the case.

Take off your masks

A lot of bewilderment among the observers was caused by the fact that both Khasis and Tikhonov were brought to court in black hats, colloquially referred to as "stockings", but with slits for the eyes on the back of the head. This immediately led to saying that the “confessions” were obtained under pressure: “according to the testimony of people who have gone through the Russian judicial system, if a suspect is brought in with a bag on his head, it means that he was forced to confess. If the bag had to be unrolled so that the eyes were not visible, it meant that they hit hard and the eyes swam. If he is in official clothes, then his own is covered in blood, ”the Russian nationalists said in a statement.
Representatives of the prosecutor's office refuse to comment on the appearance of masks on the heads of the suspects, however, Tikhonov's lawyer Yevgeny Skripelev said that the masks were put on at the personal request of the suspects. However, he did not explain their motives. As he did not explain the fact of his presence during the detention of Tikhonov. “So far, I am skeptical and cautious about this,” said the chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alekseeva, commenting on the fact that the suspects were detained. Let them convince you. Lev Ponomarev, head of the For Human Rights movement, echoes her: “Until now, we have seen the sloppy work of the investigating authorities on such high-profile crimes. Suffice it to recall the case of Anna Politkovskaya.”

Participated in the preparation of the material

Ekaterina Savina, Grigory Studnev