Translated material
Wrong jury
The court dismissed the jury in the case of the murder of Budanov
On February 13, the Moscow City Court dismissed the jury in the case of the murder of Colonel Yuri Budanov. The New Times wrote about the scandals at this trial in the article "Being a Witness is Dangerous" .
The official reason for the dissolution is the lack of the required number of assessors. According to lawyer Murad Musaev, who is defending Yusup Temerkhanov, who is accused of murdering Budanov, in the past two weeks, seven jurors have dropped out of the panel for various reasons.
On February 13, only 11 jurors came to the trial. By law, there must be at least 12 of them.
Scandal after scandal
Meanwhile, the process has already entered a decisive stage: the state prosecutors have begun to present additional evidence. The defense was going to call their witnesses. Temerkhanov's lawyers were never able to interrogate the witness Alexander Yevtukhov in court before the jury - the same one whom the operatives brought to the Moscow City Court from Barnaul.
Speaking without a jury, he did not identify the accused Temerkhanov as the killer who shot at Budanov, which Evtukhov witnessed in June 2011 on Komsomlsky Prospekt. In court, he confirmed the testimony he had given earlier during the investigation: the man who shot at the colonel had blond hair.
Another witness Ruslan Fataliev, also an eyewitness to the murder, spoke at the trial on January 14, 2013. And he did not recognize Temerkhanov as the killer of the colonel.
On February 11, at the office of the Civic Assistance Committee, Fataliyev told reporters how he was taken away from home by unknown people who demanded that he testify against Murad Musaev and told the investigation that his lawyer had bribed him.
About threats and violence from law enforcement officers, Fataliyev wrote a statement addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika and Chairman of the RF Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin.
Haven't reached a verdict.
The jury was dismissed by Judge Andrey Korotkov. And he appointed a new selection of assessors for March 18.
As a rule, if the panel is selected for the second time, then a “charged” jury can be included in it, who can convince the rest to issue a verdict that the prosecution needs.
Dissolution of the jury in the Moscow City Court is resorted to when, in high-profile cases, the state prosecution fails to convince the jury of the guilt of the defendant. Such cases are well known - the boards were dismissed in the case of the scientist Igor Sutyagin, Alexei Pichugin, three times - in the case of the attempt on Anatoly Chubais. Sooner or later it becomes known about the pressure that is exerted on the jury.
The story of Vladimir Polyutov, an official of the Moscow division of the Ministry of State Property Management, who shot himself on the eve of the verdict, the day after the jury returned a guilty verdict, The New Times wrote in the article “Prison is worse than death . ”
Upon learning of the tragedy, the two jurors found the courage to contact Polyutov's lawyer and share their impressions of the trial with him.
It remains to be hoped that the "dissolute" jurors who participated in the "Budanov case" will not remain silent. Now they are no longer bound by obligations. They didn't reach the verdict...