"Bend your paw"

IK-1 chiefs in the Yaroslavl region, where the torture was put on the stream, the court acquitted. Opegurers will sit down

The Zavolzhsky District Court of Yaroslavl announced the verdict in the sensational “Yaroslavl case” against 13 UFSIN officers in the Yaroslavl region, who were accused of torture by the prisoner. The prosecution requested the deadlines from 4 to 7 years in prison. And the entire course of the process, and the whole historically established practice of criminal proceedings in Russia gave reason to believe that about so much jailers would receive. However, the outcome of the case was different. Six out of 11 ordinary employees, although they received their terms, were released in the courtroom “for the seized”. Two leaders of the institution - the chief and his deputy - were fully justified "for the lack of an event of a crime." It was for them that the prosecutor’s office demanded the maximum deadlines, but the court did not find a certificate against them “stable” and provoking confidence.

Once being driven into a corner, the criminal-executive system simply bought a paw, giving the public to the public of simple operas and retaining the opportunity to further broadcast the idea that what happened in Yaroslavl is nothing more than the excess of the performer and is not a typical practice in any way.

The Yaroslavl case grew out of the publication of Novaya Gazeta: in July 2018, lawyers of the Public Verdict Foundation handed us a video from a portable recording device of one of the Yaroslavl IK-1 workers, and Novaya Video posted this video on its website. In the video lasting 10 minutes, an episode of torture was recorded in relation to the prisoner IK-1 Evgeny Makarov. The colony officers crucified him, stripped, on a wooden desk in the class of educational work and during these 10 minutes, they took turns striking strokes with a rubber club on the heels and legs of the prisoner. They were talking, commenting on what was happening: "Look, look, his leg swells out." "Yes, my hands already had a stuck." When one employee was tired, he handed over to the baton to his colleague. The prisoner Makarov howled, growled, prayed for mercy, but this did not stop tormentors. When he lost consciousness, water from a bucket was poured on his head.

About this torture event (as well as about others that took place in the Yaroslavl IK-1) “New Gazeta” and before, before the video publication, reported repeatedly: we cited detailed descriptions of the tortures, about which the prisoners wrote in their statements to the prosecutor's office. Also repeatedly, we wrote about the role of the head of the colony Nikolaev and - in particular - his deputy Mikhailov in the organization of the torture conveyor. However, over and over again the supervisory authorities ignored these statements and our publications.

But the terrible video finally led to the initiation of the case (part 3 of article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Excess of official powers”). The defendants of him, in addition to those present in the “Makarovsky” torture video, were also the head of the colony and his deputy:

Many of the colony employees at the preliminary investigation testified that the management directly authorized the use of torture as an educational event regarding the most impudent prisoners.

Also, the testimony of employees mentioned the deputy head of the department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in the Yaroslavl Region for educational work Stepanishchev and the first deputy head of the Barinov management - “torture” videos for that to report to them. However, the criminal case of these people did not bother - one quit, the second retired, honor in honor.

Later, already during the judicial investigation, the defendant IK-1 employees began to abandon one after another and their testimonies regarding direct management. Not just refused - but they apologized. At the same time, it must be said that the opera has been spent more than two years from the moment the criminal case was initiated behind bars, in the pre -trial detention center. Most are in single cameras. And the authorities were sitting under house arrest.

Why suddenly the defendants sitting alone, without saying a word, begin to repent in front of the authorities, about which before, without communicating among themselves, they gave rather folding and consistent testimonies - this is such a question for reflection on the nature of the Yardel.

Having published Makarov’s video in July 2018, the lawyers of the “Public Verdict” managed to receive several more video tests in the colony. And every time, after the “new” published these notes, new and new criminal cases appeared. It seemed that the line of defense of the Yaroslavl UFSIN was broken.

To this day, the Zavolzhsky court of Yaroslavl made sentences for five criminal cases from a huge number of initiated ones. Employees received deadlines - from conditional to 4 years of real imprisonment.

A huge, 50-volume business about torture against Makarov was listened to more than six months, with large intermissions in connection with quarantine.

The sensational process attracted many listeners: for once, the system punishes itself! The hearings were held in the premises of the Dzerzhinsky District Court: there is the largest hall for meetings in Yaroslavl, a huge atrium.

In June, the presiding judge Lupanov decided that the process will go further without the presence of persons who are not participants in the process: in connection with the epidemic. Only at the end of August, after a bunch of letters with requests to open the hearing, the court agreed to let the listeners to a meeting. No more than five relatives in the hall and no more than three “public representatives”.

A logical question that begs in the context of the case against the jailers: what kind of "representatives of the public"? And here it is worth saying about the experiment that the “public verdict” started in this process.

“It was interesting to us that the process, in principle, go without violations. Fair for all parties. In order for the “Yaroslavl case” to become a standard, a model of how the legitimate interests of all are observed in court. Dear interests are not infringed. Just in this process they wanted to try. This was an experiment for us, ”says Irina Biryukova, the lawyer of the“ public verdict ”, representing Makarov's interests.

The guys from the “Public Verdict”, whose brilliant work led to the fact that these briefly cut guys, professionally able to cause pain to the human being, sat on a bench of the defendants - now they themselves watched that the state did not end in their limits in relation to the defendants.

“For more than two years they (jailers) spent alone! Can you imagine this? For more than two years in a single chamber! - Biryukova was indignant. - We insisted that this was a violation of the Convention (Article 3 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights - “Prohibition of Torture”). Well, what is the court? You can’t put them with other prisoners, and they cannot be sitting together. Whoever was lucky - they were sitting with other employees who go through other matters. And who was not lucky - those alone. "

At each hearing there were volunteers-the same “representatives of the public”, who pedantically recorded the number of rejected and satisfied defense petitions, signs of violations by the parties to criminal procedure legislation. Now the analytical group of the fund has to analyze the course of the process and possible violations. But, it seems that in this case it was in relation to the defendants that the court and the “local assistants” turned some kind of such form that it would not be possible to catch it on the network of formal analysis of the violations. It seems that the verdict of direct punishers has been issued - but is there a feeling of justice?

From the very beginning of the process, that is, from February, lawyer Irina Biryukova, who pulled out all these stories with torture in the Yaroslavl colonies, lives in Yaroslavl. Hearing in the processes - a large “Yaroslavl affair” and to the torture affairs of a smaller thing - every time went every working day, there was no time to leave home, the “public verdict” rented her an apartment for this time. "Normal house, cameras are everywhere tuned." To this day, Irina formally is under state protection: then, in July 2018, when the first video with torture in the colony was published, she had to flee from Russia. Messages with threats to Irina were received before. The beauty was also threatened. But here the danger was confirmed by the sources in the colony itself. The Gosmithing of Biryukova was appointed only four months later, in November 2018. And they have not yet been removed. Today I ask her: how is it to live so much time under state protection? Quarantine in the square? “Well, you know, this defense is as it were - but it seems to be not,” she replies. No one followed her, no one gave her any alarming button.

No one has aroused any case on the facts of threats addressed to her, which still come with a certain frequency.

None of the law enforcement officers seriously refer to such things, and Ira herself laughs. He publishes on Facebook playful posts about his life, sharing culinary recipes and pictures of pets. Reading these notes, it is difficult to correlate this laughter from social networks with the Biryukova, in front of which Makhina FSIN shuddered.

Interestingly, after the announcement of the sentence - such a sentence - will it feel more safety?

Soon after the initiation of the first criminal case on the fact of torture in VKontakte, a whole group appeared “against fake human rights”. “The purpose of this community is to convey to the general public, far from the realities of life in penitentiary institutions, that the information noise around the events in the Yaroslavl correctional institutions is artificially inflated by professional“ grants ”and the leaders of the criminal environment” - this community presents itself. The last post before the verdict, if you retell it briefly: the physical methods of re -education of the prisoners meet the interests of society, and they must be more clearly prescribed in the law so that precedents like this case no longer arise.

The group is quite numerous - more than a thousand subscribers. Among the participants are employees, and their relatives, and former prisoners. Local journalists who observe the court believe that the group is administered by a lawyer protecting one of the jailers - but it is difficult for me to confirm this, the group administrator did not answer my proposal about the meeting. But be that as it may, this group was created by people who wanted to defend the employees of the Yaroslavl IK-1, who were on the bench of the defendants. And on the eve of how they go according to the stage, the community participants - friends, wives, colleagues of the defendants - seriously offered to discuss the legalization of torture in prisons (well, rinsed Biryukov with a "public verdict").

They have a lot of interesting controversy there, I read. “Until 98, they beat the buttocks on the Harpes to such an extent that the meat moved away from the bones.” "Biryukova stupidly does his job using Makarov and a number of other convicts as material." "Only justice and objectivity will give faith in our justice." “You must think about objectivity and justice when you were grabbed for a ass.” “For me personally, this is ordinary and normal practice. If you can’t convey just and culturally like you, then only through a broken face. ” “People went wrong. Very few correct and those who keep the order. The bulk of these Makarovs. He is a sent Cossack, paid initially. " "The video has gone thanks to their negligence and complete irresponsibility." “Torture is bad to be a sadist to be not good for them to all in the zone” (spelling and punctuation are preserved).

It seems to me now, after a deafening eloquent sentence on the Yardel, many of the participants in this community will have the opportunity to look at the whole story a little differently. There is no longer this dialectical ligament: "Citizen chief is a zek." People living in prison prodons, outside the leading cabinets, are equal to the system. If necessary, the prisoner will be recognized by any, even the most elegantly religious “citizen boss”.