The court extended the arrest of Danila Veselov, a defendant in the case of beating Kashin

The St. Petersburg City Court granted the investigation's request and extended the arrest period for Danile Veselov in the case of the kidnapping of the managing director of the Zaslon plant, Alexander Gorbunov, a Mediazona correspondent reports from the courtroom. Veselov is also a defendant in the case of an attack on journalist Oleg Kashin.

As previously reported, Alexander Gorbunov was kidnapped in April 2014. Unknown people demanded on the record that he confess to the involvement of the governor of the Pskov region, Andrei Turchak, in the attack on journalist Oleg Kashin. The defendants in this criminal case were Danila Veselov, Andrei Zemtsov and Mikhail Kavtaskin; all three were detained at the end of May last year. Immediately after the charges were brought, Veselov confessed. He named the manager of the Zaslon plant, Gorbunov, as the orderer of the attack on Kashin. As part of a confrontation held in September last year between Veselov and Gorbunov, the first reported that Gorbunov gave him instructions to find the journalist Kashin and beat him because he allegedly insulted Governor Turchak. Alexander Gorbunov, at the same confrontation, stated that Veselov was slandering him because he was involved in the kidnapping of the top manager of the Zaslon plant.

On Thursday, at a meeting in the city court to extend the preventive measure, Veselov’s lawyer Gennady Li petitioned to include in the case an extract from the client’s place of residence, as well as certificates about the health of his wife and mother. The latter has a degree of disability. The prosecution, in turn, petitioned to extend the period of detention by three months and 15 days, due to the fact that Danila Veselov is accused of a particularly serious crime committed by a group of people. The attack, the prosecution emphasizes, was carefully planned by at least 15 citizens. While free, Veselov can threaten witnesses, create false evidence of his innocence, and also leave the territory of Russia, since his relatives have foreign citizenship - Danila Veselov’s wife is a citizen of Ukraine. Veselov himself asked to change the preventive measure to house arrest. “I won’t run away anywhere. I have three children, a wife and a sick mother,” said the defendant.

Veselov’s wife Elena, who was in the courtroom, at that moment quietly noted that they were not allowed into Ukraine now.

The defendant's lawyer, supporting the petition to change the preventive measure to house arrest, stated that the case was protracted, since, according to him, during the last extensions of the period of detention, investigators did not carry out a single investigative action. “My client asked for a pre-trial agreement. He repented and confessed. He does not intend to hide, since he has repeatedly stated his desire to cooperate with the investigation,” Gennady Li emphasized.

As a result, Judge Anna Sadofyeva granted the investigation’s request and extended Veselov’s period of detention by three months and 15 days.

“The preventive measure was chosen and extended with justification, and therefore cannot be cancelled. The court takes into account the arguments of the defense and the certificates attached to the materials. However, they are not grounds for changing the preventive measure,” the judge noted. Earlier, the court also extended the period of detention of Andrei Zemtsov by three months. The decision regarding the suppression of Kavtaskin will be made soon.