Caught in 60 seconds

As Russian journalism is judged in Abakan. The last word of Mikhail Afanasyev

On Tuesday in the Abakan City Court, journalist Mikhail Afanasyev said the last word. This word occupies 63 pages of a common notebook (as well as inserts in the fields), written in prison. Copies are transmitted to the "New".

A document of the era. But as if from long-forgotten times, from somewhere from the 19th century, when the darkness at the bottom and darkness, taking the opportunity, bravely explain the basic things. The culture of landings in Russia degrades (although from which side to look at), returns to some ideals of the past, so it only seems that the pathos and the meaning of Afanasyev’s speech are incompetent.

Afanasyeva is accused of spreading fakes (using an official position) about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, namely, in the publication of April 4, 2022 about how and why 11 fighters of the Khakass riot police refused to participate in his. The fact of the refusal, first devoted to the publicity Afanasyev, is not in doubt, these riot police were fired by order of the commander of OMON dated 03.21.2022 “In connection with the commission of the misconduct, which defends the honor of an employee of the National Guard forces,” they later filled claims for restoration in the service. Representatives of the Republican Directorate of the Russian Guard called in court called the number of refuseniks more than 11. The state prosecutor talked about 13 employees: 11 riot police and 2 Sobrovtsy.

Mikhail is 47 years old, he has five children, the youngest is 4 years old. In the prison, he ended up 9 days after the release of the note and has been sitting for a year and 5 months, his family forced to leave Russia in the spring of 2023.

Afanasyev did not betray his informants from riot police, since, according to him, they talked with him on the condition of maintaining anonymity (there was simply no official information about those events).

The state prosecutor demanded to appoint Afanasyev 6 years in a general regime colony and a three -year ban on the profession (for “posting public information on the media and the Internet”).

The actors, in addition to the defendant Afanasyev, in the court on August 29, is his children Ivan and Sofia in the orange and gray T -shirts, waiting for dad in handcuffs, they will spend the shoulder to the shoulder. Then they also, shoulder to shoulder, sit in the hall on the bench closest to the cage with his father, and Vanya cries - his tears flowed a few seconds before his father turned to him and his other children in his last word (and Mikhail's voice also trembled, and then became deaf and hard, wooden). Sonya withstood, only turned white.

The eldest child is now not in Abakan, two younger ones were taken abroad. Here, Mikhail's mother Elena Mikhailovna: Health does not allow her to sit out the whole meeting, she asks me to send a report right after him. During the break, the wife of Mikhail calls (she is with younger children abroad). And during the meeting, the door is knocking - and he is allowed - Nikolai Rybakov, the chairman of the apple. Here - judge Evgeny Glushcheakov, state prosecutor Yuri Yarosh (previously state prosecutors Alevtin Novichenko and Maxim Rodionov participated in the process). Yarosh - with the epaulettes of the lieutenant colonel - demanded 6 years at the previous meeting, and the lawyer Vasin constantly and almost directly addresses him at the current meeting, in turn accusing him of distorting the law. (About Vasin’s speech, he will complement the list of characters in this matter.)

The operational-search measures were carried out by the FSB officers, then Colonel Natalya Bogdanovich, an investigator for particularly important matters, took up the journalist.

You can’t forget about the linguist Olga Yakutsutz: she conducted a preliminary study, on the basis of which, in particular, the criminal case appeared ( the copy is at our disposal. - A. T. ); She has not the first Afanasyev, before that there was, for example, the Pskov journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva.

The guiding 4th Investigative Department of the 1st Directorate of the Regional Squess (Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia) Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Kashkarev decided to create an investigative group to help Colonel Bogdanovich consisting of two more “important”, colonel and lieutenant colonel, as well as one senior investigator, lieutenant colonel.

Despite the fact that the stars on the uniforms in the eyes, the matter looks doubtful from a legal point of view. This is evidenced by lawyers Vladimir Vasin and Elena Ilyushenko.

Earlier, petitioning the return to the prosecutor of the case (the court accepted it only on the second attempt), the defense wrote:

“In accordance with the charge of 09/26/2022, Afanasyev began to commit criminal actions from 00 hours 00 minutes on February 24, 2022, and finished committing a crime at 23 hours 59 minutes on April 4, 2022. The prosecution was brought by him under the criminal law, which entered into force only on April 5, 2022. ”

The crime and punishability of the act, meanwhile, are determined by the criminal law acting during the commission of this act. And not by what comes into force a minute after the completion of that very act. The defense also believes that the accusation at least did not have a legal right (well, there was no law in nature) to paint the occurrence of criminal intent from Afanasyev right from February 24, there is no crime - there can be no criminal intent.

And what? The prosecution simply suffered Afanasyev’s criminal intent from February to March. Well, this is intent, it is elusive air, a “subjective”, this is possible. However, the end of Afanasyev’s criminal act from 23 hours 59 minutes on April 4 has nowhere to go, there is an objective side. Afanasyev puts a point in the note and puts it on the site, everything is fixed. And in this note, according to protection, there is simply no corpus delicti under Art. 207.3. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, since in the material of Afanasyev there is not a word about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, in it - about the fighters of the Russian Guard. The amendments to Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code, which extended its actions and on them (in general to government agencies), entered into force only at 00 hours 00 minutes on April 5, that is, a minute after the point set by Afanasyev and the text on the site. "Counselide in 60 seconds."

Late Afanasyev for a minute, the composition of the crime would probably have appeared. But Afanasyev was not late, because what to guess?

The accusation, however, eliminates this unsettled contradiction. Say, from the beginning of his Rosguard acted as part of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, therefore, it was part of their composition.

Protection makes titanic efforts, proving a kind of obvious: the army and the National Guard are “two big differences”. It is noteworthy that dozens of riot police and Sobrovtsev said the same thing in court, including three commanders and one boss. All as one said, everyone to whom the lawyer Vasin asked questions. “We are not military personnel, we are others, we have different functions, we have everything else (we just united us then).” They have their own coat of arms, their Fedzacon, their own oath, their pension provision, etc. And the first deputy Zolotov, General Kovtun, wrote a letter that the Russian Guard is a separate entity that - yes, acts “jointly with” (according to the law on defense), “along with”, “in interaction with”, which, however, again emphasizes its individual, its subjectivity.

In other words, the accusation insists that the Russian Guard was protected by law already in its first edition, Martovskaya, and the defense says: no, the amendments that entered into force in April were specially accepted for this. Who is right?

In favor of the side of protection - for example, the head of Chechnya Kadyrov. So he writes in March 2022, immediately after the adoption of the law in the first edition:

“... as a general of the Russian Guard, I believe that the text of the law must be supplemented. The adopted edition is about misinformation regarding the actions of only the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The actions of the National Guard of the Russian Federation, as well as other units that are not part of the armed forces, but performing military operations, do not fall under this wording. This will leave a loophole for provocateurs who use the limited wording and avoid punishment. I appeal to members of the State Duma to consider this issue and amend the adopted law with the implementation of the necessary legislative procedures. ”

In favor of the side of protection, for example, the deputy (State Duma) Khinshtein testifies :

“... the troops of the National Guard are not an integral part of the Russian armed forces. It was decided, however, to immediately adopt the law in the initial edition, since the RF Armed Forces is the main component of the operation. In the near future, we will try to finalize a new edition, which will affect more than one Russian Guard, but also other state military (and not only) organizations involved in the operation. ”

The court accepts and attaches to the case from lawyer Vasin a notarial inspection of the resource (Interfax) and two more folders with prints by RIA and TASS. I will quote the latter :

“The State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications proposes to extend the norms of the law on liability for fakes on the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to the Russian Guard and other organizations participating in a special military operation in Ukraine.”

The court also explores and takes a notarial inspection of the State Duma site, the tables of amendments to the law and the video of Hinshtein himself, how he sits in the meeting room and says to the microphone that it is necessary to protect the Rosguard with these amendments.

But the Khakass investigation and state prosecution, obviously, can more likely how to interpret the laws adopted in Moscow, the real truth is revealed to them by some unknown channels, the channels of the very direct connection, which was actually implied by Kadyrov, Khinshtein, and other deputies. Senators. President.

On August 29, speaking in the debate, Vasin’s lawyer, in fact, tells the state prosecutor what he is obliged to know-the content of laws, primarily the law on defense, and demonstrates the court as “the owl was pulled on the globe”. Expanders from Vasin's speech:

QUOTE

Exposure from the speech of the lawyer Vladimir Vasin:

- [...] We interrogated 33 employees of the Russian Guard in detail (from the interrogation of the rest of 34 the prosecutors, thank God, refused), not excluding those very refuseniks, one regional head of the Russian Guard (who did not go to the front) and his two closest deputies, one of whom went only to the exercises to Belarus, and the other went with his riot police, all literally on armor, in the same Column. We interrogated snipers, fighters, drivers, sappers and other specialists of their field. [...] We have changed two prosecutors. [...] August 22, speaking in the debate, the prosecutor, distorting the law, as it beneficial to him, proved that the Russian Guard and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the same thing. [...] The prosecutor Yarosh inserts into part 7 of article 1 ( defense law. - A. T. ) a phrase that is not there and never was there, he inserts a national guard there, and even passes part of the text. [...] And here I understand that the prosecutor Yarosh has nothing to do with it.

It was not he who invented and distorted, pulled out and changed the meaning of the law. This investigator Natalya Bogdanovich came up with this and prescribed such formulations of laws (see the indictment). And the prosecutor Yarosh took all this from a signed, in the right corner, a document. The state prosecutor Yarosh is finishing his 28-minute indictment with a stunning conclusion: “... Thus, evidence investigated in court confirms that during the period of the National Guard, including the combined detachment of the Rosguard in the Republic of Khakassia, they entered the structure of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

Curtain.

That was an analysis of the current legislation, namely, the law on defense No. 61-ФЗ, from the state prosecutor in this criminal case.

Prosecutor, who:

• did not interrogate with us a single special forces;

• did not interrogate the head of the Russian Guard of the whole of the Republic of Vasiliev;

• He did not interrogate the deputies of this head of the commanders Kornienko and Matveev.

And everything, perhaps because of the 20 court sessions, the respected state prosecutor visited two. Perhaps that is why the analysis turned out to be like that.

After all, it is easy to take and rewrite everything from the indictment in which the key norms of the law on defense beyond recognition are distorted, and you can ask for 6 years. General. Journalist. For the article in the newspaper.

QUOTE

Exposure from the speech of the lawyer Vladimir Vasin:

[...] The colleague and I very well understand the entire army of the prosecution, namely: the prosecutor Rodionov, the prosecutor Yarosh, the investigator Natalya Bogdanovich, the first deputy prosecutor of the Republic of Khakassia Moshkova and, of course, the Sukhotin State Security Operationsman, who undertook to prove that the Russian Guard and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are the same thing.

[...] I understand why neither the prosecutor Yarosh nor the investigator Natalya Bogdanovich referred to article 17 of the FZ-61 on defense, accusing the journalist Afanasyev.

Yes, because this article directly proves that the Russian Guard is an independent organization, not a structural unit. Or maybe Natalya Bogdanovich just did not read before Article 17.

For what?

After all, you can refer to the 11th, which the prosecutor so skillfully operated in his debate, but did not figure out that there was not a word about the troops of the National Guard or other troops, that in the context of the FZ-61 law about defense is the same, ”says Vasin.

Afanasyev - all in a black, with a transverse gray strip on a T -shirt; In black, of course, the judge Glushcheakov. Vasin’s lawyer for the first time in this process (he comes to him straight from the train) in a dark blue suit, which also looks mourning. Behind the judge and over him - the coat of arms of the Russian Federation, for the secretary of the court session is a wall calendar with a rabbit, a mysterious key hangs behind the prosecutor on the wall. Maybe from fire equipment, from the first -aid kit, maybe from the gate to some underground spaces.

“You do not have a crime, Misha,” says Vasin, turning to the defendant in a cage. - Before the crime of your article was not enough 60 seconds. The prosecutor does not want to notice this. It is clear why. Because it is necessary to free.

Then Afanasyev himself acts in the debate. And clearly, with surnames and dates, shows how the accusations called to the court - riot police - confirmed almost everything that he wrote about, confirmed during the investigation.

That is, he is judged for fakes, which in reality at the hearing were confirmed. The only serious mistake that Mikhail recognizes (“trusted his sources”) is the irretrievable losses attributed to him by the Khakass detachment of the Russian Guard.

Again. It was thanks to the case instituted at Afanasyev to the case under the protocol that those who would be silent under any other circumstances; At first, he documented the trace, and then the court interrogated many eyewitnesses of one of the most mysterious and inexplicable stories of Svo, when the combined Siberian detachments of the Russian Guard advanced to Ukraine "to protect the streets and crossroads of Kyiv." Now we know in detail, in the testimonies of dozens of actors, what and how was happening before the beginning of it, at the beginning, when the column went along the asphalt roads to GOSTOL, about the battle there, about what and how it happened further, up to the withdrawal of the fighters of the Russian Guard back to Russia. The array of documentation is certified, hemmed and so eloquent that even comments are not required. Let the state deprive Afanasyev profession, he has already done so much for her that he earned an honorary pension.

After the break, the prosecutor Yarosh refuses to respond with a replica to Vasin. Everything is clear to everyone. And then Afanasyev in absolute silence, ringing, pronounces his last word.

The verdict to the journalist Afanasyev will be announced on September 7.

Abakan