Masks, modulators and WhatsApp testimonies: secret witnesses in Russian ships

Secret witnesses are a judicial instrument that is very convenient for Russian security forces. So you can hide the operatives implemented for the development of operatives. Or construct the proof of the missing in the criminal case. OVD-Info signs on examples how and why they hide witnesses.

As a rule, the reason for classifying is the threat of security of the witness himself or his relatives and friends. “Roughly speaking, they can pay for the testimony with health, or even life. In practice, this is often used, unfortunately, unreasonably-especially in political matters, ”says Ekaterina Selezneva, lawyer of the Internal Affairs Directorate. According to her, in practice it is almost impossible to declassify a witness: even if there is no evidence of danger, the court that has already recognized the existence of a threat will simply not argue with his own decree.

“In my practice, not a single witness was declassified,” says lawyer Dmitry Dinze. He often came across using classified witnesses in the courts. The lawyer says that secret witnesses, as a rule, appear in the middle of the development of a criminal case, when circumstances are already known (or invented- OVD-info ) and they must be confirmed.

“Then secret witnesses voiced information that cannot be checked or evaluated. For example, that they heard something from the accused, ”says Dinze.

At the same time, the secret witness is not obliged to answer the questions of lawyers and clients if these questions threaten to reveal his identity.

Dinze compares secret witnesses with hired witnesses - this is a side that should be independent, but usually works in the interests of the investigation. Secret witnesses can become both real witnesses found during the investigation and implemented special services. Or it may be the accused who agreed to a pre -trial deal with the investigation.

Ultra -right and the case of "New Greatness"

The information and analytical center "Owl" has been watching nationalism and political radicalism in Russia for more than sixteen years. Its head Alexander Verkhovsky says that special services practically did not use implemented agents in the development of ultra -right groups. Because it was almost impossible to do this.

Firstly, these groups often consisted of adolescents who are well familiar with each other. Secondly, the agents would have to make great efforts in mimicry, because the ultra-right attacked people on the street, often with the use of weapons. Introduced agents would have to cut someone at least, and not chatting with their tongue.

In 2008, the Nazis from the NSO-Severs group suspected one of their associates that he works for the special services and “merges” them with information. Nikolai Melnik (most likely, this is a pseudonym for intelligence work) was beaten and then strangled . The body was taken to the bathroom. There they cut off his head. The Nazis shot everything that was happening on the video. Whether Melnik was an agent of special services is still unknown.

The head of the Owl says that in criminal cases of ultra -right, there were also recruited witnesses. But he immediately notes that the recruited person could not be represented in court precisely as a secret witness. He could simply testify within the framework of the process.

“Neither he himself nor the operatives are interested in saying that this witness was recruited earlier. Because it can undermine further work. And so he may still remain in the field and will continue to benefit. People from the ultra -right movement who testified on others - they did not cross out forever. They remained in environment, ”says Verkhovsky.

“At the same time, the implementation does not necessarily denote a provocation. A person may not provoke anything, but to observe, communicate. This is enough. In these conversations, he is gaining a sufficient base. “New Greatness” is such a sad case that people did nothing so themselves that they had to provoke something on something, ”the expert continues.

The case of “new greatness” became largely resonant due to the fact that, in fact, he was designed by a secret witness. According to the popular version, the agent-provocateur of law enforcement agencies. The Telegram user under the nickname “Ruslan D” collected membership dues and wrote the charter of the organization, which the security forces will then be called extremist. He introduced himself to the accused Ruslan Danilov. In the case, he takes place under the pseudonym Alexander Konstantinov. The lawyer of one of the defendants in the case Svetlana Sidorkina suggests that Konstantinov was a regular informant (but in practice it is almost impossible to prove this- OVD-info ).

At the same time, the photograph of Konstantinov is freely available on the network. “In fact, everyone saw him. Already in this circumstance, there was no need to classify his data, ”says Sidorkina.

At the same time, according to the prosecution, “Ruslan D” is not an employee of the special services (he himself declared “rain” about the same). According to the case file , he participated in the "New Great" for the "subsequent identification of the participants" in order to submit them to the police after.

Non -varnishes with technology and clothing

To hide the identity of such a witness, there are voice modulators in the courts. In fact, a regular microphone with a speaker and a special program. According to the instructions, the witness himself at that moment is in another room and sees a broadcast from the courtroom.

In practice, there are no technical means for hiding personality. In the preliminary investigation in the case of the Baltic Vanguard of Russian Resistance ( BARS ) in the Kaliningrad FSB, two investigators needed at once for communication with a secret witness. One introduced the words of a lawyer Dinze in the protocol and read them with voice messages in WhatsApp, the second sent the answers of a secret witness.

Other technical absenteeisms happen: in the Ufa case, Hizb U-Tahrir, on the transcript of the interrogation of the secret witness of Ruslan Sharipov, the court is constantly interrupted to eliminate technical problems. “Hizb Ut-Tahrir” is an Islamic political movement, in Russia it is listed in the list of prohibited terrorist organizations, although they did not prepare and did not carry out terrorist acts.

In this case, the deadlines from 5 to 24 years received 21 people. At the same time, the accused reported torture, and lawyers pointed out multiple violations: for example, lost volumes of cases. The public defender and mother of one of the convicts Milyauz Nurlygayanova says that in one of the lost volumes there were several secret witnesses at once, but only one spoke in court.

During the identification of the defendants in the case, says Nurlygayanov, the hood crawled at the secret witness of Sharipov, and the accused were able to make out his face. During interrogation, they said that Sharipov is an FSB operative. In court it turned out that Sharipov knew all the accused by person and dictates their full home addresses. Even contrary to the fact that many defendants, according to the defense, did not know each other before the start of the process. And despite the fact that, according to investigators, the organization was severely conspired. In the affairs of the Hizb Ut-Tahrir in other cities, secret witnesses were also interrogated .

In the case of a broken window and a smoke bomb in the office of United Russia, according to which a graduate student of the Mehmat MSU Azat Miftakhov was arrested, there was also a secret witness at a confrontation. This time in a mask. This man allegedly saw Miftakhov at the United Russia office in Khovrino on the day of the attack. The witness in the mask claims that he observed events from a distance of 10-15 meters and was able to identify the graduate student of the Moscow State University by “expressive eyebrows”. Interestingly, the recognition itself occurred a year after the events.

The lawyer of Miftakhova Svetlana Sidorkina says that in this case a secret witness was needed to “secure” the detention of a graduate student and detain him. It was not necessary to change the voice - Sidorkina says that Miftakhov did not recognize the voice of a man in a mask.

Secret witnesses in the "Network"

On January 17, 2019, the court issued the first sentence in the case of the Network . Igor Shishkin was convicted of 3.5 years in prison. He made a deal with the investigation and fully pleaded guilty. The investigation claims that the “network” is a terrorist organization with cells in St. Petersburg, Penza, Moscow and Belarus. 11 anarchists and anti -fascists are held in the case. Ten of them are in jail.

The day after the verdict, Shishkin’s lawyer Dmitry Dinzewrote a post on Facebook, which says that in the case of “three classified witnesses (agent)”.

The fact that in the case of the Network there is at least one secret witness - under the pseudonym Kira Tatarinov - was known in early 2018. Then the journalist Republicreceived some case materials. The witness said that she heard from Shishkin about the existence of a secret organization that wants to change the system to anarchist.

Shishkin disappeared on January 25, 2018. He was probably tortured for two days - the public observation commission recorded the traces of his body about this. He was officially detained and taken under arrest only on January 27. The REPULIC material says that Kira Tatarinova gave her testimony on the day of the official arrest of Shishkin, January 27. Since Shishkin made a deal with the investigation, his case was considered in a special manner without researching evidence. Kira Tatarinov was not interrogated in court.

“No separate indication can affect the course of the investigation or the course of the court. In our country (in Russian justice- OTD-info ) everything is evaluated in aggregate. This is one of the testimonies. But they are significant. Yes, they indicate the guilt of persons from the prosecution. But, as we all know, when you begin to interrogate these people during the court session, they can speak completely differently (as recorded in the case- OVD-Info ). Therefore, I do not particularly trust the attitudes to be fitted by the preliminary investigation authorities for the materials of the criminal case, or under the events and circumstances that concern this or that accused or the suspect. The investigator is the prosecution. And if the prosecution is, what are they doing? They collect exclusively facts and evidence that is against the side of protection, ”says Dmitry Dinze OTD-Info.

At the end of January 2019, the parents of the defendants in the case of the “Network” talked about another secret witness. Neo -Nazi, a student of the Penza vocational school, Vlad Gresko since the fall of 2016 tried to enter into confidence in the anti -fascist Ilya Shakursky.

A strong young man introduced himself to the Shakur Vlad Dobrovolsky. He drained the anti -fascist information about the preparatory attacks of the Nazis, conducted training on airsoft tactics, brought to violent acts against law enforcement officers and constantly asked for a meeting. In the summer of 2017, Dobrovolsky told Shakursky that he wanted to move on to radical actions and make a bomb. After that, the anti -fascist stopped communicating with him and getting in touch. In the middle of the fall of 2017, the FSB officers will detain Shakursky. According to Shakursky, he will be tortured, and then they will be accused of creating a terrorist community. One of the arguments of the investigation will be that Shakursky was engaged in strikbole.

In the Penza Office of the FSB, the investigation group in the case of the Network is led by Valery Tokarev. New Gazeta found that the provocateur Gresko-Dobrovolsky was playing sports in the Cross-club Zavod in Penza. Valery Tokarev goes there for training. The OTD-Info correspondent looked at the photos of the sports club and did not find joint pictures of these two people. In addition, it was not possible to install whether Tokarev was engaged in this club at the same time with Gresko-Dobrovolsky.

At the same time, Shakursky in April 2018 filed an application addressed to Tokarev that Dobrovolsky provoked him to radical actions. Investigators did not check this information.

After one of the meetings with Dobrovolsky to Shakursky, a man came up on the street and began to provoke him to a fight. The next time the anti -fascist saw him already in the FSB office - it was the FSB operative Dmitry. He listened to Nazi music and discussed with the head of the operational department Vyacheslav Shepelev that he would like to shoot at the anti -fascists. According to Shakursky, Shepelev was one of those who tortured him and the other defendant in the case of the “network” Dmitry Pchelintsev.

Bifurcated witness and “Jehovah's Witnesses”

In May 2017, Dennis Kristensen was arrested in Russia in Russia. He was suspected that he organized the activities of the extremist organization “Jehovah's Witnesses” in Orel (part 1 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code). Followers of religious teachings have been pursued in Russia since April 2017. It was then that the Supreme Court recognized the “Management Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia” with an extremist organization and banned its activities in the country.

In February 2019, Kristensen was sentenced to six years in a colony.

According to lawyer Anton Bogdanov, the criminal case against Kristensen was built on the testimony of a secret witness under the pseudonym Alexei Ermolov and videos of meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses.

In his testimony, Yermolov repeated the theses of the indictment. Bogdanov’s lawyer assumes that Ermolov is actually Oleg Kurdyumov, a theologian from the University of Orel. According to the defender, this is proved by the case file and video analysis. However, the court refused to declassify Ermolov. If both witnesses are the same person, then the situation is absurd. The case file has an interrogation of the witness Kurdyumov, who talked with Kristensen and secretly recorded a conversation for the FSB. And there is an interrogation of the secret witness of Yermolov. The artificial bifurcation of witnesses, the defender believes, was needed to confuse protection.

This is not the only thing against the followers of Jehovah's Witnesses, which is built on the testimony of a secret witness. A similar method of special services was used , for example, when initiated a criminal case against two residents of Kemerovo.

In the "Swamp business"

At the testimony of secret witnesses, anarchist Dmitry Buchenkov was built against anarchist, who was charged with participation in Massion Riots and an attack on a police officer on May 6, 2012 in Moscow on Bolotnaya Square.

Secret witnesses claimed that they saw him that day in the capital during the mass protest. In fact, Buchenkov was not even in Moscow. The anarchist spent more than a year in jail, then he was transferred under house arrest. After some time, Buchenkov emigrated from Russia.

The secret witness “Sergey Gerasimov” from the Buchenkov case a few years earlier gave testimony against the anti -fascist Alexei Gaskarov. All this happened in the framework of the "swamp business". Gaskarov was sentenced to 3.5 years in colony.