Amnesty is ten times smaller

Agranovsky in “The Case of Twelve” defends Vladimir Akimenkov, who, according to the project, can be released under an amnesty, and Yaroslav Belousov, who cannot be released under an amnesty, although the violence attributed to him has not been proven . (Another of Agranovsky’s clients in the Bolotnaya case is Leonid Razvozzhaev, who is accused of organizing mass riots, so he also falls under the amnesty.) In a conversation with an OVD-Info correspondent , the lawyer admitted that the reservations about the need to wait for conviction and to release from punishment only those already convicted, I have never seen before in amnesty decrees. “And not just me,” he added, “I’ve already talked to a lot of different lawyers, including in the Duma. This is an amazing design, very strange, because it is clear that the amnesty was probably the result of some kind of compromise. It’s not clear to me what will happen to the Greenpeace people. Okay, our case has already been heard almost to the end. And for them it’s only just beginning. Will they also wait for their condemnation?”

According to Agranovsky, “this formulation violates the principle of equality of citizens before the law. I just don’t understand in principle why this clause was made. The amnesty also mentions more serious articles, and yet cases under them are perfectly subject to termination. In general, the impression was that the amnesty was prepared taking into account the so-called “high-profile cases”, so that they would not fall under it or would fall under it only minimally. And this is wrong, because there are no loud cases or quiet cases. There are cases considered by the court, legal or illegal decisions, and which of them is loud, which is quiet - what's the difference? What if there is press interest in the case, then people are more guilty of this? This is a strange criterion."

At the same time, the lawyer does not lose hope that the draft will be improved in the Duma: “Strictly speaking, it is still unknown what will be adopted, because each faction has its own draft, and as far as I know, there are eleven of them in total, and they will make amendments, so I do not rule out that this point will be corrected. I don’t exclude at all that it could be the result of a legal or technical error - it looks too ridiculous.” Agranovsky also hopes that the article on the use of non-dangerous violence against a representative of the authorities (Part 1 of Article 318), charged with the majority of those accused in the Bolotnaya case, may still be included in the final text of the resolution: “This is a crime of medium gravity. Almost all crimes of moderate gravity are eligible for amnesty. It’s just completely incomprehensible why it is excluded. In my opinion, we need to look at the categories of crimes, and not at whom they are directed against. As if ordinary citizens should be any less protected than police officers? It turns out that you can beat ordinary citizens - you will be given an amnesty, but you cannot beat police officers. It's not fair. I’m not even talking about the fact that it has happened recently that our government is not so popular that it should be elevated above the citizens.”

As is known, before Putin introduced the draft resolution to the Duma, he was presented with a version prepared by the Human Rights Council. According to a member of the Council, chairman of the human rights organization “Agora” Pavel Chikov, “the project of the Human Rights Council affected, according to some estimates, about 200 thousand convicts, and the project submitted by the president to the State Duma was almost ten times less. Convicts who had less than one year left to serve their sentence were not included in the amnesty category. Such a clause was included in the Council’s draft, and one can guess for what reasons this proposal did not pass: it is obviously connected with Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. A large group of cases involving unfinished crimes, that is, preparations and attempts, were also not included in the amnesty. This was also among the council's proposals. It didn’t pass, because it would have meant the release of the lion’s share of those convicted on charges related to drug trafficking. This is a unique Russian story where people get from six to ten years just for allegedly trying sell drugs to someone . It should be taken into account that almost 26% of those serving sentences in colonies are imprisoned for drug-related cases. There are many cases related to attempted fraud or bribery, but they were also not included in the project.” The incriminated part of the accused in the “Bolotnaya case”, Part 1 of Art. 318, as Chikov reminds, refers to crimes of medium gravity, and crimes of minor and medium gravity, in the opinion of the Council, were subject to amnesty. The point that amnesties under Part 2 of Art. 212, part 3 art. 212, art. 213 and part 1 of Art. 264 are subject only to convicted persons; it was not included in the Council’s draft.

Unlike Agranovsky, Chikov does not have any hopes for improving the draft resolution: “I think there is zero chance.”