Lieutenant Arakcheev: “There’s no blood on me!”

Finally, a documentary film about the “Arakcheev case”, released last year by screenwriter Igor Khrekin and director Svetlana Stasenko, has been posted online. The producer of the film is the manager and presenter of the RBC-TV channel, Igor Vittel, a man of liberal views, not known to have any bias or personal interest.

The film tells the story of the tragedy of a young lieutenant of the internal troops, Sergei Arakcheev, who fulfilled his military duty in the Chechen Republic as a sapper and in 2003 was undeservedly accused of murdering three Chechen civilians. After the jury twice acquitted the lieutenant, and the Supreme Court twice overturned their verdict, depriving him of the right to a jury trial, the military court sentenced Sergei to 15 years in prison. At the same time, numerous compelling evidence of the lieutenant's innocence was ignored. The “Arakcheev case”, in its “political roots” and the “special technology” of legal proceedings applied to the accused, stands on a par with the “ Ulman case ”.

The “Arakcheev case” has repeatedly caused widespread public outcry. During his business trip to Chechnya, the commander of the sapper company, Lieutenant Sergei Arakcheev, cleared more than 25 explosive devices and was awarded the Suvorov Medal, the Medal for Military Valor, and the Medal for Military Valor. In the spring of 2003, he and his colleague, senior lieutenant Evgeny Khudyakov, were arrested on suspicion of murdering three Chechen construction workers with the destruction of a KamAZ car, which occurred on January 15, 2003. After Arakcheev and Khudyakov were acquitted by the jury, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov commented on the jury’s verdict: “In my opinion, the primary reason for the acquittal was the administration of justice not on the territory of the Chechen Republic, as well as the jury’s misunderstanding in this criminal case of the will of my people.” And in December 2007, Arakcheev and Khudyakov were sentenced by judge V.E. Tsibulnik to imprisonment for a term of 15 and 17 years, respectively, serving the sentence in a maximum security correctional colony with deprivation of military ranks and awards received - “the will of the Chechen people” triumphed over justice. For comparison: the Chechen militants who seized the maternity hospital in Budennovsk (they were responsible for 129 lives) got away with prison terms of just over ten years.

E. Khudyakov did not appear at the sentencing. His whereabouts are still unknown...

Igor Khrekin, the film’s screenwriter in his blog : “ And the Chechen side and Memorial understand perfectly well that Arakcheev is a political victim. They themselves do not hide it: “ We need to be imprisoned for this, and not just those who are handed over to us.” "eating" - the Budanovs, Ulmanovs, Arakcheevs, and high-ranking generals. We are all fixated on Shamanov, but besides him there are others. For example, General Studenikin, Nedobitko, Moltenskoy. There are a lot of them." In general, this phrase already became a catchphrase as soon as it came out of the mouth of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Chechen Republic, Nurdi Nukhazhiev. However, later realizing that this is not comme il faut at all, when such cannibalistic words come from a human rights defender, his The text was edited and this phrase was removed from it . But the Internet remembered it well.”

Over the past year, a lot has been written and said about the “Arakcheev case,” even though almost five years have passed since the verdict. Last summer, Sergei petitioned President Dmitry Medvedev to review his case. Having served five years in prison for nothing, Sergei still declares his innocence and demands justice. At the same time, in the summer of 2011, the lieutenant underwent a polygraph examination (lie detector), which clearly confirmed his innocence. On November 9 last year, the writer and public defender of Sergei Arakcheev, Marina Yudenich, at a meeting of President Medvedev with active bloggers, also raised the issue of the need to review the case of Arakcheev, who was innocently convicted of murder and serving a long sentence in a colony. In January, on the Ren-TV channel, the “Verdict” program was dedicated to the Arakcheev case, during which 12 participants (jury-style) with different political and religious views, including Chechen human rights activists, discussed the need to review the Arakcheev case and the moral and legal conflict of the participation of federal security forces structures in establishing constitutional order on the territory of their own country. A twenty-minute documentary about Lieutenant Arakcheev has been actively touring regional film festivals since September last year. It was even eagerly shown in the program of the Islamic Film Festival in Kazan; in May this year, as part of the Stalker festival, the film will be shown in Dagestan. To date, the film “There Is No Blood on Me” is a prize-winner at film festivals:

- Yekaterinburg 2011, Open Documentary Film Festival "Russia" - Prize "For the Humanism of Cinematography";
- Ufa 2011, festival "Hero of Our Time" - Prize "For the best director's work";
- Lipetsk 2011, III festival-competition "Man Exploring the World", first place - "Best Documentary Film";
- International Film Festival "Radonezh" - Special Certificate from the Synodal Department for interaction with the army and law enforcement agencies;
- XVII International Film Festival about Human Rights "STALKER" - DIPLOMA OF THE JURY of the film festival.

In addition, this is the only Russian film presented in Sydney at the international conference INPUT-2012.

Unfortunately, despite the public outcry, which has not faded to this day, and the expressed, if not blatant, evidence for the need to reconsider the Arakcheev-Khudyakov case, the authorities ignore any appeals on this topic. After activists of informal political forces handed over to the president a list of so-called. political prisoners, Medvedev faintly hinted that he was ready to consider requests for pardon of those on the list. But Sergei Arakcheev categorically refused this option, continuing to insist on his innocence. While behind bars for five years, he continues to believe in the fairness of our justice and is ready to continue serving his homeland after he is acquitted again.

Now let's watch the movie: