The dead is accused

The trial of a teenager began, who was beaten to death

In St. Petersburg, the trial of Nikita Leontyev, a teenager, who in January 2012, was beaten by police officers.

15-year-old Nikita Leontyev, 2011 St. Petersburg

The boy who did not have two weeks before his 16th anniversary is accused of robbery-allegedly he tried to tear out a bag from the woman, and therefore was detained then. The victim, who, due to the ongoing binge, was able to testify to the investigation only from the third time, did not appear to the court, so the same police officers, from whose hands Nikita died, are witnessing.

Closed process

The 411st Hall of meetings in the Nevsky District Court of St. Petersburg is located on the last, fourth floor. In addition to the judges and her two secretaries, the prosecutor, two lawyers and a tall, thin woman with a haggard face are sitting in the hall. The cage for the accused is empty: the one who is judged here under Article 161, 2 pp) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (robbery committed using violence that is not life -threatening) cannot be present at the process and testify to his protection: Nikita Leontyev has been lying in the grave at the Kovalevsky cemetery for more than a year and a half. On the night of January 21 to 22, 2012, drunk police officers from the 75th branch of the Nevsky district beat him to his death. They accused the deceased teenager of trying to take the bag from a tipsy citizen - supposedly this caused his detention.

A thin tall woman in the courtroom is his mother. She insisted that the case against the deceased son would not be terminated on non -rehabilitating grounds. She decided that she would achieve the restoration of his good name and demand that his non -involvement in robbery be proved in court.

In the dressing room near the courtroom, a young couple sits on benches: the girl corresponds to someone to the SS, the young man lays a card solid on the iPad. Both are waiting in line in some other process. When the convoy leads a person in them in handcuffs, young people are distracted from their classes and look at each other with easy horror from unexpected contact with someone else's and frightening reality.

A man in handcuffs is a former district police officer of the 75th police department in the Nevsky district Denis Ivanov. Last month, he was sentenced to six and a half years in a maximum security colony for beating Nikita to death. Ivanov fully admitted his guilt, concluded a deal with the investigation and was convicted of a special manner, that is, without a trial - but received a mild punishment. Now he is a witness to the prosecution, that is, he will prove that the boy he killed is a robber.

The process was declared closed: in the period under consideration by the court, Nikita was a minor - and only its direct participants are allowed into the hall. But if no one climbs the stairs and does not speak loudly in the corridor, then from behind the door you can hear well what is happening in the courtroom.

The version of the prosecution

Denis Ivanov, former district police officer, convicted of beating to the death of Nikita Leontiev

“I haven't seen the face. But he found out by height and clothes, ”Ivanov explains why he was sure that he was detained by the one who pulled out the bag from the victim. “You say that they (robbers) fled in your direction. How did you not remember their faces? " - "The one who was in gray had a hood, did not pay attention to the second."

The police insist on their version of the events: Nikita was detained for a reason, but in hot pursuit after the perfect robbery, he was identified by the victim, he himself also pleaded guilty and even seemed to reveal the name of the accomplice. True, for some reason no one then remembered this name, and in the case this second robber is absent.

"Have you taken the explanations from him (the detainee)?" -Lawyers are trying to find out whether at least some written document has been preserved, proving that Nikita was recognized in robbery and that in general, someone properly formalized his detention. “From him - no. But he did not deny the guilt, he called the name of the accomplice. But I don’t remember him now. And with the victim, he took small explanations. "

Police Major Alexei Malykhs of the same 75th department, who participated in the detention of Nikita and dismissed after the death of the boy, did not live to see him before he was charged: two weeks after the incident he died of a heart attack. The victim Svetlana Kuzmin, whose bag was allegedly trying to take away with 300 rubles, soon after the murder was the journalist Fontanka.ru Denis Korotkov - in the apartment, "to the situation of which the word" Pruton "would fit. The neighbors told the journalist that Svetlana “drinks, walks, makes noise,” and the roommate said that Kuzmina seemed to admit to him that she did not tell the real version of what had happened because “was afraid of the cops”. She gave testimonies from the investigation the third time when she was hardly taken out of binge.

“During another interrogation, you said that you did not see the moment of the attack. Now you are saying again what you have seen, ”the judge clarifies the testimony of Ivanov. “Before that, I gave a little other testimony,” the former district police officer agrees. “When I was interrogated all these times, the emphasis was on another.” - "How much did you drink that day?" -"Half a liter, probably." - "And others?" - “The same is the same. Petrov and Prokhorenkov - I do not know. "

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Mother decided that he would achieve the restoration of his good name and demand that the son’s innocence to robbery be proved in court

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About what was happening in the department, after the police drank half a liter of vodka, Olga Leontyeva heard in another room the courts of the same court a few hours before: simultaneously with the process of her son on Thursday, hearing in the case of Oleg Prokhorenkov, deputy head of the 75th police department of the Nevsky district, also accused of beating Nikita. Prokhorenkov, unlike Ivanov, does not admit his guilt, and therefore he will find a full -fledged trial with the call of witnesses and the study of evidence. And Olga will once again have to hear in all details from the killers and witnesses of the murder of her son about the terrible last minutes of his life a year and a half ago.

Mother's version

Nikita's mother - Olga Leontiev at the grave of her son on October 4, 2013.

Olga Leontyeva, well, began to remember himself and, according to her, began somewhere in March. Two months before that, who passed from the night on January 22, she was like in a fog, and therefore confuses the days of the week, date and sequence of events. He remembers how she called the ambulance that night and listened from the doctor the strange words “died according to the life indicators”, remembers how she came to the police department where her child was killed and heard from the policeman small: “Do you know that your son is a drug addict? What is he sitting on "AIDS"? " He remembers his own words that no one beat his son, "well, maybe they gave a couple of slaps in the face."

It doesn’t remember the date-it seems, the 26th-but he remembers exactly why she decided to come to a TOK show at 100V: it was immediately after receiving the results of the examination, which showed that neither alcohol nor drugs found in the blood of Nikita. Olga wanted to tell about this from the same screen from which her family had previously reported that the deceased was a robber and a drug addict.

She does not remember when-to the funeral or after-some general came to her (this was Major General Nikolai Rogova, who asked for forgiveness on behalf of the leadership of the Main Directorate of the St. Petersburg Ministry of Internal Affairs). But he remembers how for four days in a row on the car she drove along glazed roads and stuck in the ruts in the yards around the strong point, trying to understand how to catch up with the robber runaway in the snowdrifts.

He remembers that she insisted that Nikita be buried in an open coffin, so that at least his face could be seen. On the boy’s body, experts counted at least 79 injuries or “zones of the application of injury force”. Olga remembers why, going to the coffin, the first thing she threw back the bedspread: “I knew how his life began. And now I know exactly how it ended. ”

Guidelines of friends

Nikita was born on the day when his mother was 21 years old, because he was more likely for Olga. “He has been with me everywhere since childhood, and when he grew up, we listened to one music, watched only films,” she says. Nikita was six and a half when he had a younger sister, and from the very beginning he considered himself her nanny and defender. That evening, from January 21 to 22, it was a 9-year-old sister who called her mother to complain that Nikita was still not at home.

It is known which of the friends of the teenager walked until 8 pm. Where he was from 8 to 12, when, according to the police, he was detained and taken to the 75th police department of the Nevsky district, no one knows. Perhaps with girls, because lately he has been in love with a lot. Nikita had no mobile phone with him: over the past year, he lost several devices at once, and the new Bolshoi Black HTC bought by his mother was at home waiting for his birthday. “We have never had problems,” Olga says, “he always responded. And always at 11 pm was at home. ” Olga’s lawyers looked at the recordings from the surveillance cameras of the Nevsky shopping center, but they saw nothing on them - these records were too poor.

“He could not steal anything with anyone,” says Yuri Vladimirov, Nikita’s coach in basketball. - He was engaged in me from the third grade: he had no aggression. If he used drugs, I would see it right away. ” “How did you explain his death to the guys? - I ask the coach. “I didn’t explain anything. What can I explain? What do we have such a "cool" police? What do we have such a system? All the guys are sure that he did nothing. ”

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Olga will once again hear in all details from the killers and witnesses of the murder of her son about the terrible last minutes of his life a year and a half ago

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All the friends of the Nikita, with whom the author was talking about him, speak in different words, but the same thing: yes, he could burst out, could snapped and send ahead of the tipsy policemen. But he could not hit a woman with his foot to take her bag.

“Of course, there was a shock,” recalls the class teacher of Nikita Natalya Valterovna Egorova. - Girls - many were friends with him - only doctors were able to reassure, rewind medicine. They sobbed excitedly. "

In the corner in the class to the right of the door, between the pots with flowers, there is still a photograph of Nikita: in a year and a half she faded a little, and Natalya Valterovna thinks to ask one of the guys to change to a new one. Next to the photo is the Red Machine: the last gift of classmates of the deceased comrade.

“In the spring, one of our boy went to the cemetery to look for Nikita’s grave - he wanted to visit this grave. There were snowdrifts, and the grave is far from the entrance. I did not find it, returned home. Nikita was good, well, who would go to the waist in the snow to look for a grave for the sake of bad? - And after a pause, he adds: - I am amazed at how much his mother has a lot of effort, how much she is a fighter, her hands do not drop. She told him at the coffin at the funeral: I will do everything to justify your name. I put myself in her place: I would not be able to, my hands would drop. "

Unfumy system

The lawyer of the former deputy head of the 75th police department Oleg Prokhorenkov Igor Chigir believes that Ivanov stipulates his client in order to reduce his role in the murder. "He (Ivanov) had to show someone a villain, and himself-a pawn."

“What is the point of Prokhorenkov to beat a minor boy? - Chigir argues, who, before becoming a defender, worked for several years in law enforcement. - Well, robbery. Prokhorenkov has a million of these robberies. ” - "Why Ivanov?" “When a person is detained, adrenaline appears: I detained a criminal, a kind of animal instinct. This usually happens with young people, especially during the first detention, and Ivanov, I think, had not detained anyone before. Those who have been serving for a long time have everything differently. ” “In any case, Prokhorenkov is the head of Ivanov. Does he not worry that the child was killed in his department? " - “Very worried. In fact".

“The system showed its failure,” says another former threat employee, now the deputy director of the agency of journalistic investigations in St. Petersburg, Yevgeny Zashenkov. - If three “handsome people” decided to get drunk, eat. If something happens, call a sober help or get on and sit quietly, if this is not an emergency. ”

The posthumous accusation of Nikita in the robbery of Zashenkov explains as follows: “There are two options for interpretation of what happened. The first is called "overdone." That is, there was a robbery, there was a detention of a criminal, but the police did not calculate the strength a little. In such cases, public opinion is often on the police side. That is, of course, ay-ah, what a horror, a teenager was scored, but on the other hand, it was not a fig to rob. The second option: the police blooming in shit for no reason they score an innocent boy. This is already called a “brutal gang”, and this is completely different. I would probably choose the first option at the site of the authorities: why do I need a pack of killers? Better to be shabby dogs that overdid it. ”

Fight injustice

Now Olga will have to be in court 2-3 times a week. She is sure that she will cope, the main thing is not to meet the eyes of the police and withstand reading examinations about damage to Nikita's body.

“When a person does not have the opportunity to justify himself, in his own words, he cannot be judged. Maybe only these women with an accident in Leninsky knew something that could justify them, or the same magnet. Or Nikita. - Olga pauses. “But why did I insist on court?” Because I have no other way. Maybe I have a hypertrophied sense of motherhood, and I need to be treated. But I am most worried about his friends who are faced with this at the beginning of life. At first it is wildly scary, and then a feeling of injustice appears, on which self -doubt, disappointment, this is a viscous “What is the point?” And so they at least find out that they must be fought with injustice. ”

Photos: from the page of Nikita VKontakte, Maria Aismont