Left in custody

The case of the arrest of a seriously ill businesswoman Natalya Gulevich returned to the Moscow City Court, which a week ago canceled the previous decision of the Tverskoy Court, giving the accused hope that her preventive measure in the district court could be changed. On October 5, the European Court of Human Rights intervened in her case: the Russian government was asked questions, including about the state of health of Gulevich.

But the miracle did not happen, and judge Aleksey Krivoruchko, known for the fact that two years ago, at one of the hearings in the case of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, he refused to give him boiling water so that he could brew noodles from dry rations issued in the pre-trial detention center, left Natalya Gulevich in custody. Similarly, Judge Anton Martynenko from the Babushkinsky Court did the same, refusing to change the measure of restraint for Stanislav Kankiya, a businessman who, like Natalya Gulevich, is charged under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud) and, according to the presidential amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, should not be kept in a pre-trial detention center. Kankiya suffered several strokes during his year in prison, and after the last one, he suffered severe brain damage. According to lawyers, his wife and cellmates, Kankiya behaves inappropriately, does not understand where he is and is unlikely to be able to participate in court hearings. Gulevich, due to her state of health, will also not be able to defend herself in court (in December, the deadline for her detention ends and the case must be brought to court).

The Moscow judges once again showed that, to paraphrase Mikhail Bulgakov, "mercy rarely knocks on their hearts." And there are big doubts that they are guided by the law.