The Meshchansky Court of Moscow refused to consider in a special order (without examining the evidence) the criminal case of the former chief accountant of the Seventh Studio Nina Maslyaeva, since the court had doubts about her fulfillment of the terms of the plea bargain with the investigation, TASS reports .

Experts predict the final collapse of the Seventh Studio case

Politics / Army and special services

The prosecutor, defense, and representative of the Ministry of Culture told the court that they saw no reason to switch from a special to a general procedure for considering Maslyaeva's case. However, Judge Tatyana Shanina decided that the case would be considered in the general regime as early as January 13. As justification, the judge read Maslyaeva's testimony from two trials where the "main" case of "Seventh Studio" was considered. In this testimony, Maslyaeva claimed that she did not know who exactly stole money from the organization and in what amount.

Maslyaeva was the only defendant in the Seventh Studio case who admitted her guilt and testified against the other defendants.

In addition to director Kirill Serebrennikov, the Seventh Studio case also involves the director of the Russian Academic Youth Theatre (RAMT) Sofia Apfelbaum, the former general director of the Seventh Studio Yuri Itin, and the former general producer of the studio Alexei Malobrodsky. They are accused of embezzling 133 million rubles allocated from the budget in 2011–2014 for the implementation of the Platform project for the development of contemporary art.

In September, the court returned the Seventh Studio case to the prosecutor's office due to irreparable violations in the indictment. In early October, the Moscow City Court overturned the decision to return the case and returned it to the Meshchansky Court for consideration by a new panel of judges.

The court refused to consider the case of Maslyaeva from the Seventh Studio in a special order