"Mediazona": The "Network" case in St. Petersburg

25-year-old Filinkov and 28-year-old Yuliy Boyarshinov have been in pretrial detention for more than two years - both were detained in St. Petersburg in January 2018. Filinkov told how FSB officers tortured him with a stun gun, and Boyarshinov talked about beatings in the press hut in the Gorelovo pre-trial detention center. Both are accused of participating in a terrorist community (Part 2 of Article 205.4 of the Criminal Code) - according to investigators, they were members of the anarchist organization “Network”, which was created in Penza by anti-fascist Dmitry Pchelintsev in May 2015. The goal of the Network, the FSB insists, was the “armed overthrow of the government.”

The organization, according to the FSB, was divided into regional cells, and the roles between the participants were strictly distributed. Filinkov and Boyarshinov joined the “Network” in 2016 - in the St. Petersburg cells “Field of Mars” and “Jordan” - the first became a signalman, the second a sapper. Both, according to investigators, took part in training, where they learned to handle weapons and prepare improvised explosive devices, and in 2017 they attended the Network congress, where they discussed the readiness of the organization’s members for “terrorist actions.”

The 2nd Western District Military Court began hearing their case in April 2019. The hearings were regularly postponed and rescheduled, so during this time the court in Penza managed to consider the case of local activists, who were also accused as members of the “Network”, and handed down a harsh sentence to them - seven young people received from 6 to 18 years in prison. At the end of February in St. Petersburg, the prosecutor announced that the prosecution had finished presenting its evidence. There were no hearings for three months due to the coronavirus epidemic, and from May 25 the defense will present its arguments. In the meantime, Mediazona briefly recounts what evidence the prosecution brought to show the court that Filinkov and Boyarshinov are terrorists.

Testimony of Yuli Boyarshinov, who agreed with the prosecution's version and asked for a special trial procedure . During his arrest, Boyarshinov was found to have 409 grams of black powder, because of this he is also accused of illegal possession of explosives (Part 1 of Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code) - Boyarshinov himself explains that he worked as an industrial climber and, having discovered gunpowder on one of the roofs, decided to take it home. During the investigation, the activist repeatedly complained about pressure and beatings in the pre-trial detention center. He did not testify for a long time, but then he finally decided to admit guilt, and in court he asked for a special procedure, but he was refused .