Illustration: Natalia Yamshchikova

"I am a witness!" Who helps the police falsify criminal cases for drugs

Journalists of “important stories” and “Medusa” found more than 140 “full -time” witnesses who testified in Moscow courts under “narcotic” articles. These are familiar police officers or those who are dependent on them. Despite the gross violation of the law, the judges sent hundreds of people to bars.

In May 2018, 35-year-old Natalia Goloborodko appealed to the Department for Control of Drugs of Drugs of the Internal Affairs Directorate in the Western Administrative District (CJSC) to "expose the salesman of prohibited substances." The police decided to conduct a “verification purchase”: Goloborodko offered to buy a substance from a dealer under the supervision of operatives. She agreed. The police found two witnesses, together they went to the house of the unemployed Nikolai Grigoryev - that same “salesman”. As soon as the deal took place, the investigators detained the seller. In the police department, Grigoryev seized money allegedly received from Goloborodko for the drug, and in his apartment, again in the presence of witnesses, they found MDMA, amphetamine and hash. Nikolai Grigoriev was accused of two episodes of drugs and one attempt on sales. At the preliminary investigation, he confessed everything.

But in court, Grigoryev did not plead guilty and explained that he had testified under the pressure of the police, and Goloborodko pronounced him. He said that he was familiar with her, but he did not sell amphetamine. The money that the police allegedly issued Goloborodko for the purchase of drugs, having previously rewritten the serial numbers of the bills, according to Grigoryev, the operatives threw him. Nicholas’s mother and sister said in court that "they did not assume that he was engaged in drugs." The only eyewitnesses of the crime were police officers, the witnesses and the purchaser Natalia Goloborodko. On August 1, 2019, the Kuntsevsky District Court found Nikolai Grigoriev guilty and appointed him 11 years in a maximum security colony.

Prior to the sentencing, Grigoriev was transported in a car carrier along with other under investigation. Among them, he recognized a dark -haired man - a witness who, during the same “verification purchase”, should have acted as an independent observer, control the actions of the police, and ensure that no one threw anything to the suspect. It turned out to be 38-year-old Mikhail Rakhmankin, at that time already twice convicted for the sale of drugs in large and significant size.

Grigoriev realized that he was a witness to his business. In the future, he sat with him in one investigative insulator and also expected the court.

As the investigation of “important stories” and “jellyfish” showed, the case of Grigoryev is a drop in the sea of ​​falsifications of criminal cases on “narcotic” articles. We analyzed tens of thousands of sentences issued in Moscow, and found more than 140 “full -time” witnesses - familiar operatives, drug addicts or previously convicted people. Police officers used these people to fabricate criminal cases. Subsequently, despite the protests of the lawyers, the judges sent hundreds of defendants for these cases for jail for many years.

The authors are Alesya Marokhovskaya (“important stories”), Ivan Kolunov (“Medusa”); Shooting, installation - Gleb Limansky; Illustrations - Natalia Yamshchikova; Director - Artyom Preamin

"I have to help plant innocent"

“When Grigoryev told me that he had met the understood in his case in the car, I began to punch all the names of the witnesses in the base of the Moscow City Court. And it turned out that the previously convicted Mikhail Rakhmankin himself is now under investigation for illegal sale of drugs on a large scale. Like the second understood. How can they be independent? " - says Grigoriev’s lawyer Andrei Tolstoy to reporters.

Mikhail Rakhmankin was not only convicted twice: a month before the detention of Grigoryev, he acted as a purchaser in another case. Now he is serving a sentence in the colony for the sale of drugs. According to Ekaterina Selivanova from the Fund for Protecting the Protection of Health and Social Justice named after Andrei Shkov, where the detained Mikhail Rakhmankin turned to the protection, the evidence of his guilt was the testimony of police officers and a drug buyer, detained the day before, as well as video from the metro camera. Rakhmankin and defense insisted that it was impossible to identify someone on the record, but in court one of the police officers said that he recognized Rakhmankin’s video, cheering the image with photocopy of his passport.

“I know that he turned to the Office of his own security [Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate], tried to cooperate with them, said that he had something to tell about the police department in the CJSC. He hoped that they would be able to somehow influence his business and would give him a shorter term. But this did not happen, he received 11 years, ”said Ekaterina Selivanova.

The second understood in the case - Dmitry Chuprin - also visited the buyer and understood in other cases in the "narcotic" articles, and after participating in the case of Grigoriev, he himself was detained by the same police officers. They found amphetamine in him in a hood: supposedly Chuprin himself “laid” him there “for the purpose of personal use”.

Another witness, Akop Khachatryan, at the trial, said that on the night when they detained Grigoryev, he was at a gas station in the Moscow region. There, police officers approached him and asked to go to the Simferopol highway to go with them in the forest belt along with the operatives and the suspect Grigoryev himself to look for “bookmarks” ( caches with drugs that merchants leave for customers . - Approx. Ed. ), Which he allegedly laid down for the purpose of marketing. Khachatryan did not refuse the police, although he actually went to a friend for his birthday. He told “important stories” that he agreed to become a witness “by virtue of education”, since “he studied at the Russian Academy of City Service” and for him “it was something akin to duty”. When asked if Khachatryan was already familiar with the police, he replied that he was not.

Photo: Page Hakop Khachatryan in VKontakte

But, judging by the text of the sentence in another case, a week before the case at the gas station Khachatryan had already met with the same operatives. His testimony states that he passed by the ATC in a CJSC, where police officers turned to him and asked to stay with his witnesses during the search of the apartment and the personal search of the detainee. Khachatryan agreed. Six months later, he acted at least twice - the first and third of November 2018. The same operatives of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Internal Affairs Directorate in CJSC worked on the matters with the participation of Khachatryan as a witness: Maxim Umetbaev, Yegor Farmanin, Denis Konovalov and Akbar Sergaliev. To the question of the journalists, how, after all, Khachatryan, working with the same police officers, could not know them, he did not answer.

The buyer from the case of Grigoryeva Natalia Goloborodko, whose voluntary statement supposedly all began, on the contrary, did not hide her acquaintance with police officers. According to the version, which she stated in a statement in the Moscow Military District’s Office, on May 19, 2018, at half past eight in the evening, Natalia was beaten near her house, and then two police officers dragged to the car, one of them was Yegor Pharmanin. In the car, they allowed her to make one call. Natalia called her friend - another operator, Maxim Umetbaeva. According to Goloborodko, he drove up to the place, talked with Farmanin for 10 minutes and took it to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Kuntsevo district. There they found amphetamine in her purse.

Illustration: Natalia Yamshchikova

Illustration: Natalia Yamshchikova

“Employees of the criminal investigation department, taking advantage of the fact that the article and the threat of imprisonment hangs over me, began to incline me to provide them with assistance and collaborate with them. They told me directly that if I refuse, they would put me down, and if I agree, I will stay free. <...> I agreed. This was led by Umetbaev Maxim. He told me that I should testify against Nicholas Grigoryev, and also help in some other matter. I agreed, since I have a child, a minor son, ”said Goloborodko in a statement.

According to her, the police "fabricated all the materials against Grigoryev." “I understand that if I do not report on the criminal actions of employees of the Internal Affairs Directorate in CJSC, I will be forced to“ help ”to put the innocent in prisons,” said Goloborodko.

Already in the appeal, Grigoryev’s lawyer Andrei Tolstoy drawed the attention of the court that Goloborodko was a provocateur, and the witnesses Rakhmankin and Chuprin were informants of the operatives. “We were not even allowed to interrogate Rakhmankin in court. I suppose that he was more categorically configured and could say something wrong. The judge cynically declared to us in person: "Look for yourself where he is, and provide his turnout." I again climbed to the court’s website and saw that the same judge extended Rakhmankin the term of detention literally on the eve of our meeting. And now he offers us to look for it ourselves, ”says the lawyer.

The judge of the first instance Sergey Astakhov considered that "the opinion of the defense that the witnesses who were dependent on the police were involved in the personal inspection." And when the case of Grigoryev was considered in the court of appeal, the operative of Umetbaev and four more employees of the Internal Affairs Directorate in the CJSC were already removed from work-due to the prosecution In the falsification of the case of the journalist "Medusa" Ivan Golunov. As a result, Grigoryev’s appeal was acquitted by two episodes of three. Instead of 11 years, a maximum security colony that threatened him for the sale of drugs, Grigoryev was appointed six years and six months. Lawyer Andrei Tolstoy does not exclude that the court could revise the decision due to the loud case of Golunov.

"If I am exposing my understood, police officers will thank me"

On June 6, 2019, a year after the detention of Nikolai Grigoryev, employees of the Internal Affairs Directorate of CJSC Igor Lyakhovets and his former subordinates Maxim Umetbaev, Roman Feofanov, Denis Konovalov and Akbar Sergaliev detained Ivan Golunov journalist. In his backpack, and then drugs were thrown into the apartment. The witnesses who were present at operational-search measures (ORM) did not see any violations.

Photo: The press service of the Moscow City Court

At the first interrogation of the witness, Sergei Kuznetsov, who watched the detention, said that he was “at the crime scene” by chance: he just came to take a walk in the center of Moscow. But in the following interrogations, Kuznetsov already gave other evidence. According to him, on June sixth, he was called an drug control officer Yegor Pharmanin, who used to work as a district police station at his place of residence, and asked him to be witnessed. “Yegor explained that if I am expected by understood and spend my time, police officers will“ thank me ”. The amount was definitely not specified. Further, for half an hour, one of the employees called me on my mobile, who said that I had to drive to the Metro station “Tsvetnoy Boulevard”, ”the protocol of the interrogation of Kuznetsov said. Already in court, Kuznetsov said that the police gave him “from one and a half to two thousand” rubles by taxi.

Sergey Kuznetsov is 25 years old. He grew up in a large family, works as a locksmith in Mosvodostok. According to him, he met the operative Farmanin five to six years ago. “I have a brother to whom an employee came from the commission on minors. In one of the visits, the employee was with Yegor [Pharmanin]. He came to check our family, since my brother and I were registered. Egor then worked in the Maryino police department. After that, Yegor called me several times and asked me to participate in the understood by other employees. There were times when police officers at their own expense called me a taxi. ”

The operative Maxim Umetbaev subsequently also admitted during interrogation that Kuznetsov knew before. According to him, Kuznetsov took part in the affairs that Umetbaev and his colleagues engaged in.

Due to the detention of Ivan Golunov, a large-scale public campaign began: people went out with pickets to the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on Petrovka, journalists and activists demanded his liberation. The reporters of the Rain TV channel came home to the witness Kuznetsov, they asked if he was familiar with the operatives through the door. In response, he threatened to call the police outfit.

According to the case materials, after the visit of journalists, Sergei Kuznetsov tried to call the operative Farmanin four times. And immediately after that, for some reason, he was called up by the AKOP Khachatryan-the same one understood from the Grigoryev case, who answered the journalists with “important stories”, which was understood only from a sense of duty and not familiar with the police. When asked why he called Kuznetsov, Khachatryan said that “this is some kind of misunderstanding”, and asked him not to disturb him anymore. In applications that show how the phone number is recorded in other people, the Akop Khachatryan phone is indicated as “ACCOP GNA” ( probably the Main Delce Control Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs . - Approx. Ed. ), “Black Armenian Kemerovo” and “Akop Opera”.

On June 11, 2019, five days after the arrest, Ivan Golunov was released. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev said that the case against him was terminated. And already on June 20, when, during the annual direct line, Vladimir Putin asked the question of the case of a journalist, the president replied : “It is necessary to establish control over the activities of law enforcement agencies so that there are no offenses on their part. So that for the sake of reporting and for the sake of “gams” people do not put in prison. So that there are no such cases as with the journalist you mentioned. ”

It turns out that the only witnesses in the case of Ivan Golunov, as in the case of Nikolai Grigoryev, were operatives and dependent witnesses. Golunov discovered that the use of the so -called “full -time” witnesses is a common practice for the ATC in the CJSC.

Our investigation proves that the scale of this problem is not limited to one Department of Internal Affairs. The police do not care about the president’s direct decrees in almost every district of Moscow: they everywhere use those who are on them depending on people or simply familiar as witnesses.

How we were looking for "full -time" witnesses

In order to find suspicious witnesses, it was necessary to find their names in the texts of sentences or decisions, and then see if they are found in other matters. Most of the texts of sentences, rulings and decisions Moscow courts post in general access on the website of the Moscow City Court. Journalists of “important stories” unloaded 56,860 documents from there for all the time of the so -called narcotic articles of the Criminal Code: 228, 228.1, 228.2, 228.3, 228.4, 229, 229.1, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234.

The texts of sentences and decisions are usually given by witnesses, purchasers and police officers. Or at least the names of people and their role are called - if the matter was not considered in a special order ( if the defendant fully pleads guilty, he may submit an application for the consideration of the case in a special manner, that is, without studying evidence in court. - Approx. Ed. ). Also, in most cases, secretaries replace the names in the text on the name, FULL NAME1, FULL NAME2, etc. But not always.

142 “full -time” witnesses were discovered by journalists in the sentences of Moscow courts (sentences were issued according to “narcotic” articles)

In those cases where the names are preserved, we removed them from the texts using programming and found the names and surnames that are found in documents on various matters. In our workshop, we told how to extract names from the texts using Python. Such cases suggest that a person somehow participated in different processes - it was possible to understand in what role. Open lists of judges, secretaries, lawyers, prosecutors and their assistants helped us immediately exclude them from the sample. The remaining names journalists of “important stories” and “Medus” were studied manually for three months: they read documents, wrote out dates, areas, circumstances, courts, police departments and their employees, investigators, prosecutors, lawyers and judges. And then they searched for these witnesses and studied their connections with police officers.

We managed to find 142 people who were attracted by the police as supposedly independent witnesses. In fact, these people were understood and purchasers several times, could be convicted of the same “narcotic” articles, be under investigation or suffer from drug addiction.

So that such witnesses are no longer involved in police officers to operational-search measures, in addition to this text we publish a complete list of all suspicious witnesses we found.

"Do you think how many times a minute are you breathing?"

The record number of “full -time” witnesses - 18 people - were connected with the Department of Internal Affairs in CJSC whose employees detained journalist Ivan Golunov, and before that, Nikolai Grigoryev. Immediately after the Golunov case, President Vladimir Putin removed the head of the Internal Affairs Directorate Andrei Puchkov, and five of his former subordinates are now being judged for exceeding official powers, a fabrication of evidence in the criminal case and illegal storage of drugs.

In second place-the Internal Affairs Directorate in the Eastern Administrative District (VAO): there 13 witnesses more than once took part in the operational-search events of the same employees or were convicted. If we figure out how and in what matters these witnesses were involved, it turns out that almost all of them, as an acting troupe, took turns working at investigative events along with employees of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the WAO. For example, Oleg Kokorev, judging by the texts of sentences and appeal decisions, was four times understood, twice - the purchaser and once conventionally convicted for three years for the acquisition and storage of drugs on a large scale.

Kokorev at least three times intersected with other “full -time” witnesses in various matters, which the ATC via VAO led. In one case - with Pavel Ilyin, who shortly before that he himself received a year conditionally for the illegal acquisition and storage of drugs in a significant amount. In the other, with two witnesses at once: Victoria Molokanova and Alexei Khrenov. The latter can be seen among the witnesses in the record holding case: in it we immediately discovered four witnesses who were no longer the first time to take part in operational-search measures or they themselves were convicted of “narcotic” articles. Two witnesses from this case intersected with each other at least in one case. It turns out that at least seven witnesses were connected with each other in four cases, which were engaged in the same police officers. The operative of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the VAO Yevgeny Matytsin was involved in three of these four cases, Alexei Mazin and Vitaly Belikin in two. “Important stories” failed to contact them.

The defendants in these four cases were soon condemned by Moscow judges to 8-12 years in prison.

Before the obligation to investigate narcotic affairs was transferred to the Internal Affairs Directorate, special services in the districts at the Moscow Department of the FSKN ( the Federal Service of the Russian Federation for Control of Drug Transport. The department was disbanded in 2016, instead of it - the Main Drug Control Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. - Approx. Ed. ). In the VAO UFSK service, we counted the five “full -time” witnesses. For example, all the same Oleg Kokorev participated in the affairs that this service investigated. The remaining four also intersected with each other on different matters.

Almost all witnesses refused to speak with reporters. Having learned what the material is being prepared about, they, as a rule, did not answer anymore. Some briefly explained that "they no longer want to get into it." But Ilya Eagle, who was at least six times understood at the request of the employees of the VAO Federal District and the Internal Affairs Directorate for the WAO, nevertheless agreed to talk with journalists.

Unlike many other witnesses, Ilya never had a criminal record. Judging by his profile on VKontakte, he graduated from the Moscow Polytechnic University and worked there by a technician in the protocol department, and was in the Youth Political Movement “Our”, created by the Administration of the President of Russia.

Photo: Ilya Page Orel in VKontakte

In two cases, to which Ilya Eagle was attracted, the composition of the operatives, the prosecutor and the judge completely coincided. Two more cases with his participation, who were conducted by the same operatives, the Perovsky District Court examined one day. According to the eagle himself, he was understood even more than six times - and not only in “narcotic” matters, but also, for example, when they “delayed a person in a state of intoxication”:

- How many times have you been understood?

- I do not think for sure. Do you think how many times are you breathing per minute?

- No, but this is not the same thing.

- In the sense of not the same thing? Some vital affairs that envelop you daily-most people do not consider them.

- That is, do you act daily?

- Not like daily. I do not count this figure, I do not worry about this.

Also, in a conversation with “important stories”, the eagle claimed that each meeting with police officers took place by chance:

“Well, it’s reasonable when you live or you have any business next to the police station.”

- That is, you just live next to the police station and so it turns out?

-In some points-yes, in some-I went on business. I live, study, work - I constantly have a police station nearby.

According to Ilya Orel, he personally is not familiar with any of the operatives. For him, "police officer is just a police officer."

Judging only by court documents, even more often the eagle in the role of the understood in Moscow and the region was Jacob Black. Seven times he participated in the ORM of the ATC employees in the North-Western Administrative District (North-Western Council), the SZA Office of the Federal Drug Control Service and the SPAS Service and the city of Zelenograd of the FSKN Office. In total, these departments in the North -West I found 22 “full -time” witnesses.

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In four cases, Jacob Black "worked" in pairs with the understood by Alexei Sukhoparov. Together they participated in the same operational-search events.

In 2016, at one of the court hearings on the “narcotic” case, the Black directly told the Butyrsky district court, which was more than once understood, and defense paid attention to this. But then the judge considered that "the participation of the specified witness as a witness during other procedural actions with the participation of FSKN employees cannot indicate that he testified that did not correspond to the actual circumstances, as well as that he is an interested in the permission of the case by a person." The defendant was found guilty and appointed him 11 years in colony.

A year later, the case was returned to the first instance and was considered again by another judge. This time, Cherny’s testimony said that “earlier police officers V.V. Gaidukov and Gorchakov F. N. were not familiar with him.” Although, as follows from the texts of sentences, at that time he was at least three times understood at their request. One of the policemen, Gorchakov, F.N., even testified that “when inspecting the purchaser, the black I. A., who showed a reasonable initiative and provides gratuitous assistance in exposing the drugs, participating in drugs, participated. Earlier, Black Ya. A. participated in 2-3 similar procurement. ” These contradictions in the testimony of the operative and the witness did not embarrass the judge. The defendant was nevertheless sentenced to 10 years and 9 months in prison. A year later, Black again testified as a witness - already in a different case, but at a meeting of the same judge.

At the time of publication, the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia did not respond to a request from journalists.

"And the judge hears all this"

As a rule, lawyers draw the attention of the court to suspicious witnesses. Andrei Tolstoy’s lawyer tried to do this: “The judge with his silence allows you to bring the case worse next time. I said in court that the issue of time when this would result in a huge problem. ”

Lawyers in the record holding case on the number of “full-time” witnesses, which employees from the Internal Affairs Directorate for the WAO, were not silent. In this case, in 2016, five accused of illegal sale of psychotropic substances by an organized group received from 10 to 12 years of colony each. At the same time, at least four witnesses in the case were already involved in the employees of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the WAO as witnesses or were convicted of “narcotic” articles. The buyer was also previously convicted and several times collaborated with the police on “verification purchases”. Another understood during the hearing said that he did not remember anything, because he was influenced by drugs.

All lawyers tried to pay attention to this, says Vitaly Sych, the defender of one of the defendants, Manuchar Atayan, who, according to the investigation, was the organizer of the criminal group.

Lawyer and former investigator Vitaly
Sych “In my practice, such situations sometimes reached the point of absurdity. The person was asked: “Well, how could you be attended by this inspection if you were at the other end of Moscow at the other end of Moscow?” And the judge hears all this. But besides the fact that all this is voiced, nothing is happening more. The court accepts such witnesses. ”

“We reported that the witnesses are familiar with the investigator, that they could depend on the investigator for other cases. They told the judge that the witnesses were already at his meetings on other matters, ”recalls Sych. - As a rule, the court replied that this was not related to the case. In my practice, such situations sometimes reached the point of absurdity. The person was asked: “Well, how could you be attended by this inspection if you were at the other end of Moscow at the other end of Moscow?” And the judge hears all this. But besides the fact that all this is voiced, nothing is happening more. The court accepts such witnesses. ”

As a rule, whenever lawyers indicate that the witnesses were intoxicated, worked at the direction of the operatives or were detained by them the day before, the judge announces that the opinion of the defense was not confirmed and there are no reasons to doubt the testimony of witnesses. Moreover, the judges themselves really often meet the same witnesses at their meetings.

Even in that small amount of court documents, where the names of witnesses and purchasers have been preserved in the text, we found at least 38 cases when the judges were not seen for the first time, but did not respond to this in any way.

Most often (according to court sentences, at least 11 times) the testimony of “full -time” witnesses took and then the judge of the Nagatinsky district court Anton Filatov was sentenced after that. So, A. Judge Filatov saw at least three times the understood Cherkasov A. O. Cherkasov. In two cases, Cherkasov was understood by the same operatives of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Tsaritsyno district. In the texts of the sentences there was the same wording: “The defendant’s fault is confirmed <...> by the testimony of the witness Cherkasov A.O., who was testified to the testimony of the witness [the name of the operational employee] about his participation as the understood <...>.

In the same two matters, together with Cherkasov, another understood participated - E. Degtereva in one case, like Cherkasov, gave “testimonies similar to the indications [the name of the operational employee]”.

In the Simonovsky District Court, several judges at once could see at their meetings on various cases of the same witness: Alexei Gumbatov appeared at least in six “narcotic” matters in the role of a purchaser or a witness. At least twice he was seen by judges Svetlana Tumanin and Natalia Repnikova. The latter is known in connection with the decision to replace the policy of Alexei Navalny with a conditional term with the real in the “Iv Rocher case”. ”

Already in the appeal, one of the affairs with Gumbatov’s participation in her statement indicated that not only Gumbatov, but also the second understood, “repeatedly participated in the operational-search measures conducted by the police, illegally participated in investigative actions as witnesses.” The court decided that the reliability of the testimonies of these witnesses and police officers are not in doubt, since they are "consistent with each other."

Simonovsky District Court did not answer the request of “important stories”. In the Nagatinsky District Court, we were replied that "the evaluation by the reported witness is given by the court in conjunction with all evidence in the criminal case, taking into account the rules for evaluating evidence established by the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation."

Illustration: Natalia Yamshchikova

"Do you have drug addicts in the area?"

Not only Moscow operatives attract “full -time” witnesses in narcotic affairs - this can be called all -Russian practice. For example, in Samara, six police officers for two years massively felled criminal cases. At least 15 witnesses helped them in this, most of them are convicted under the same “narcotic” articles. In order not to get another deadline, they signed any protocols at the request of the police.

Now these witnesses are judged along with the operatives: they are accused of falsification of criminal cases, and the police are also excess of official powers. Officially in this case, there are so far 17 victims. But, according to the lawyer of the human rights organization "Public Verdict" Dmitry Egoshin, in fact there may be about a hundred victims. Most of the victims are still serving the deadlines in the colonies, several people have already died.

“The police invited drug addicts, whom they already knew. Distributed the roles: you will be understood, you are also understood, and you will be a buyer. Then they detained citizens, drawn up documents, brought for interrogation. And then the materials came to the investigator. And everything is sewn, ”says Egoshin. - The witnesses said that they were repeatedly delayed by these police officers or lived on their site. They said in interrogations: “I am a person dependent on this policeman. I was afraid that if I refuse, then there would be a matter of me”. ”

Many lawyers are convinced that the institute of witnesses in Russia is a big problem. It needs to be changed, as well as the entire system of evidence in drug affairs.

“Things on the knee are being fabricated: interrogation, examination - and the person sat down. I would like to believe that “[Samara] business” will help to somehow influence this question, ”the lawyer Dmitry Egoshin hopes.

“The witnesses are required at almost every operational event, and it is not so easy to find them,” says lawyer and former investigator Vitaly Sych. - And if an honest employee in a month will not provide a single disclosed case, then the boss will come to him and remind you of the plan: “Do you have the drug addicts in the area? Do you have the most indicative, or something, friend? Are you putting two witnesses in the UAZ, and let them ride with you. And look for you!” Therefore, cases of exceeding official powers are here all the time. The operatives who are involved in the issue of drug trafficking use their witnesses: those who have previously been delayed, for example. As a rule, they are attracted to drug addicts who are ready to tell for a small dose that they were everywhere, they saw everything. As the saying goes: “Who is the witness? I am a witness!” ”

With the witnesses who are easily and are ready to confirm anything, the police officers are very easy to falsify criminal cases related to drugs - this is confirmed by many lawyers. Not least thanks to the flexible “regular” witnesses “narcotic” articles and become “popular”: according to the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of Russia, over the past five years, almost half a million people have been convicted of them.

We only talked about how the institution of “regular” witnesses was arranged in Moscow. But this scheme is used throughout the country. If you are a journalist or activist and want to find “full -time” witnesses in your region, write to us:

alesya.marohovskaya@istories.media (Alesya Marokhovskaya)

ivan.golunov@meduza.io (Ivan Kolunov)

Editors: Alexandra Mirror, Roman Anin