Misfired

Employees of Gosnarkokontrol, apparently, found where to improve the disclosure statistics - in the army

Sometimes the judges, justifying the indictments copied into the verdicts (using the copy-paste method - with errors and stupidities), give an argument: the workload of the courts. You can’t take it away, especially when you consider that the lower district courts are overwhelmed with cases of theft of some small thing from a supermarket (the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have been trying for a year to force deputies to adopt amendments to decriminalize such crimes, the investigation of which takes millions of budget money). But there are also, let's say, separate institutions in the Russian justice system, whose workload is 6,000 criminal cases per year, or 0.6% of all cases coming to courts of general jurisdiction. We are talking about military courts. By comparison, district courts handle half a million cases a year. With such a gentle load, it would seem that the proceedings should be more thorough, and there should be fewer errors. In general, I do not know, but on one specific case I can speak definitely. Here lies before me the verdict, which I can evaluatively characterize as "crap", only better and more scrupulously combed in terms of compliance with the procedure.

Let's call him Pavel, 22 years old, studied at the university for three years, realized that the specialty was not suitable and decided to take a break - he went to the army, served in the training of internal troops. He fell ill and was sent to the District Military Clinical Hospital (Podolsk). Coincidentally, it was at that time that the Seventh Service of the Federal Drug Control Service for the Moscow Region decided to carry out operational-search activities there: according to their data, serviceman Vladislav M. was selling hashish on the territory of the hospital - it was he who became the object of attention of the Federal Drug Control Service.

The operation is as easy as shelling pears: a test purchase. All you need to do is equip some soldier with a hidden camera, send him to the distributor and catch him red-handed. This is exactly what happens: a soldier, under the supervision of the Federal Drug Control Service, handed over 3 thousand rubles to M., and he returned with a potion. It was possible to put an end to it: here is a distributor for you, here is hashish - to take M. red-handed and quickly take the case to court.

But - looking ahead - I will say: M. is still at large, and a completely different person, Pavel, received the sentence. It turned out like this.

M. suddenly points to Pavel as the person from whom he bought hashish. The strange thing is that the opera, who kept him under observation during the operation, did not see this. But miracles do happen in life: after a few minutes, 3.41 grams of hashish and supposedly the same 3,000 rubles are found on Pavel’s bed (whether they were “the same ones” was not reliably established, since they were not marked). In fact, one can understand the motivation: it is one thing to reveal the banal sale of a small dose, another thing is the storage of a large one ... "Sticks" are different.

During the investigation, Pavel and his family somehow did not particularly worry: they believed that the misunderstanding would be quickly resolved. And, indeed, it was about that. Initially, the investigation also believed that the hashish seized from Pavel did not belong to him, and issued a decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case. In addition, Pavel did not use drugs (proven by examination) and never sold them (proven by the testimony of witnesses). But the leadership of the investigation was not satisfied with such a turn.

And in the spring of this year, the judge of the 235th garrison military court, Andrey Tolkachenko, sentenced Pavel to 4 years in prison for possession of narcotic drugs for subsequent personal use and attempted sale.

No corpus delicti was found in the actions of the suspect M., although he sold hashish and was stoned that day, and Pavel's accusation was based solely on his testimony.

Yes, and there are enough “blunders” in business. When the banknotes were handed over to the soldier who bought hashish, there was an attesting witness - a RUDN University student, but, according to the official response from the RUDN University administration, this student was in class all that day - just at the time when he allegedly signed in the "witnessed" column. And then the handwriting examination showed that the signatures on his behalf in the procedural documents were made by different persons.

True, this did not convince the court - the decision says: the fact of the absence of a witness in Podolsk that day "is refuted by the studied materials of the case." Well studied, nothing to say.

Paul counted on the appeal - after all, as he believed, his innocence is obvious. But three judges of the Moscow District Military Court upheld the verdict.

Paul's last speech was brief: “All life is destroyed. I'm condemned for something I didn't do." But the court believed the witness and part-time drug dealer M., who, let me remind you, was intoxicated on that day that day, and ruled: "the case was considered objectively and in accordance with the law."

“He is an open, polite, attentive person. He suffers greatly that he could not prove his innocence, ”says Pavel’s mother, who is now serving a sentence in a colony and is waiting for his last chance for salvation - a cassation.

This is such a common story, and, believe me, dozens of letters come to the editorial office with stories about the investigation and the trial, which are confusingly similar.