The court rejected the appeal against the arrest of mathematician Azat Miftakhov and imposed a lawyer by appointment

The First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction in Moscow upheld the arrest of mathematician Azat Miftakhov, accused of hooliganism (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code). Miftakhov's lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina told OVD-Info about this.

The meeting began five and a half hours later than the appointed time and took place without lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina, but with an appointed lawyer. Sidorkina was forced to leave after 2.5 hours of waiting for another meeting, following a claim for compensation against the ex-defendant in the “Moscow case” Sergei Abanichev. “I believe that the court being late for 2.5 hours is disrespectful both to me as a defense lawyer and to my client,” Sidorkina wrote in a statement addressed to the judge (quoted from the DOXA publication). The lawyer asked to postpone the hearing and agree with her on a new date.

However, the court did not take into account either Sidorkina’s request or Miftakhov’s refusal to appoint a lawyer. Sidorkina plans to file a complaint with the Chamber of Lawyers, since the appointed lawyer violated corporate ethics by defending a person who refused his services. The court decision will also be appealed in cassation.

• At the beginning of February 2020, the Moscow City Court extended Miftakhov’s arrest until April 7, 2020. Miftakhov has been in a pre-trial detention center for more than a year, so the measure of restraint is determined not by the district court, but by the city court.
• Azat Miftakhov is a graduate student of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Moscow State University, an anarchist who was arrested in a case of hooliganism committed by a group of people (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, on January 30, 2018, Miftakhov, Andrey Eikin, Elena Gorban and Alexey Kobaidze broke a window in the United Russia office and threw a smoke bomb there. Kobaidze left Russia, his case was separated into separate proceedings.
• In December 2019, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the completion of the investigation into the case of a broken window in the United Russia office. At the end of February 2020, the prosecutor's office approved the indictment in this case.
• Miftakhov was detained on February 1, 2019, and later he told his lawyer about torture with a screwdriver. For the next 11 days, his detention was extended under various pretexts. OVD-Info spoke in detail about aspects of Miftakhov’s detention, and published a chronology of the development of the case of a broken window in the United Russia office.