"She only called for peace"

The conviction of Alexander Skochilenko will be appealed

The defense of the artist expects that the City Court of St. Petersburg will see all the violations committed during the consideration of the case in the district court, and recognizes the unreasonableness of severe punishment for a girl suffering from incurable diseases. Two in a row of absurd process in the case of five pieces of paper - for the cultural capital, this is already too much.

“Come! Today in the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg we will see Sasha for the last time ”-with such messages the morning began on November 16 in all telegram channels, covering the process in the Skochilenko case. “Alexandra will say the last word, and then the judge will pronounce her a sentence.”

The first listeners - including the correspondents of the Western media who arrived in the Northern capital - came to the court two hours before the meeting. In total, more than a hundred people came to support Sasha - it is difficult to calculate exactly, the process stretched for the whole day, some people came, others left.

The last word Skochilenko was listened to by directors Alexander Sokurov and Alexei Malobrodsky, diplomats of several countries, Moscow and St. Petersburg politicians.

As usual, journalists petitioned the video: the last word of Sasha is the moment that it is important to save for history. But the judge of the Vasileostrovsky district court of Oksana Demyashev, who considers the artist, considered it differently and, as usual, refused such an opportunity. Only the announcement of the resolving part of the sentence allowed to take on the video, but on the condition that neither she, nor the state prosecutor, nor those who wish it would get into the frame.

The state prosecutor, deputy prosecutor of the Vasileostrovsky district, Alexander Gladyshev, agreed with the judge that the video would interfere with the process, but before that he noted:

- Of course, I understand that many want to see a real court session, listen to what the defendant Skochilenko will say in the last word. Does she repent or not?

“Skochilenko does not repent,” he did not endure and abruptly stood up to make a statement, lawyer Yuri Novolodsky. - These are your prosecutor’s fantasies, you are fully persisted in your errors. She has nothing to repent of. She is not guilty of anything. She did not commit any crime. She only called for a stop of hostilities and to the world.

Sasha called her business “strange and funny” in the last word and explained many times why it was. But no one in the hall smiled. Everyone remembered that on November 8, during the judicial debate, the deputy district prosecutor Gladyshev requested the artist eight years of the colony for five price tags replaced by her in the Perekrestok store with pacifist theses, and emphasized that this is still not enough - this is still not enough - the law allows him to request 10 years.

The law allows, and the conscience or what the deputy prosecutor and the judge is in the place of it did not allow them to raise their eyes at half an hour of Sasha’s speech - at her, on those present in the hall ...

Both Gladyshev and Demyashev for 30 minutes, without tearing his heads, wrote something diligently in their notebooks. The deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, Boris Vishnevsky, even recalled the joke on this subject: the defendant appeared in court for the last time, and the judge is already scribbling the decision. The defendant: "Your honor, but I have not even finished speech." Judge: "Do not worry, in your case I wrote a decision yesterday, I am writing a decision on the following."

The last word of Skochilenko needs to be read entirely. I will not pull out quotes out of it, but I will give one phrase Sasha addressed to the judge: “Whatever the decision you make - you will go down in history.”

Demyashev and Gladyshev will go down in history by such - with their faces no kinder and voices are no softer than the prison warders; with strong hands, constantly clinging to the volume of criminal proceedings, as a drowning man grabs the log; With icy eyes, in which over the past year we have not seen anything but anger and irritation. No reflection, no attempt to understand anything or hear anyone. Very useful people convenient for today's Russian judicial system. They will go down in history with a sentence for pieces of paper.

In the last word, Alexander reminded the judge that there was an optimal way out: even by admitting the guilt, by law you can appoint a conditional term, and not real. And despite the fact that for the whole year of the consideration of the case, Demyashev had never given a reason to hope for a good outcome of the case, there were people in the hall who had a small hope that it would be reasonable for those three hours of break on November 16, while the judge was preparing a decision.

- Very alarming sensations on the eve of the sentence. I am very excited, very worried, ”said the“ new ”director Alexei Malobrodsky. - I do not presume to predict anything, but I quietly hope that the judge will have enough humanity or a sense of self -preservation so that the verdict is significantly different from the sadistic crazy term that the prosecutor requested. It’s just that these creatures, I cannot call them people, do not think about either their future or the future of their children and grandchildren, who, I am sure, will be shy about their surnames, their mother, grandmother, I don’t know who ... Apparently, the prosecutor and the judge have completely atrophied the self-preservation mechanism. But maybe once they will be able somewhere there, on the bottom, a little bit out of a person and save this grain, convey to their children, then it will be easier for them to live.

“If there is a sentence, it doesn’t matter even what,” it will be wrong, ”said the“ new ”director Alexander Sokurov. - A woman to judge for civil beliefs is an abuse of man, over the people. In my opinion, there is no content of the crime. I see how the prosecutor feels, how, dropping his eyes, the judge listens to the whole process, and I would not want to be in their place.

“Whatever the sentence, it will become one of the little steps in favor of people to die,” said Nikolai Rybakov, chairman of the United Democratic Party of Yabloko, ”expressed confidence. - Because this is the main thing that Sasha spoke of. So that at least it was not in vain that she did. The price that she already paid for it so that she was not in vain.

Skochilenko’s completely cynically condemn for the real term against the backdrop of all those pardons of dangerous criminals that occur in recent days.

What kind of society will we educate, showing: these are heroes, we will have mercy on them, but a girl who made such a speech not because she came up with it, but because she feels so, send it to the colony? What will we have the future then? There are two alternatives. What will win?

“I am very alarming now,” the girl Sasha Sonya Subbotina, a few minutes before the sentence, admitted in a conversation with the “new”. - I have been preparing for a long time, but still now I feel that I am morally not ready for a sentence. I am sure that he will be an indictment. I am afraid that Sasha will be given a long time. I'm afraid to go into the hall and hear it ...

Sonya went among the first and heard. Alexander, in response to numerous encouraging cries from the audience, smiled, raised her thumb up, folded her hands to his heart, sent air kisses. Sonya also smiled in the hall. And behind the doors she burst into tears ...

Protection of Skochilenko does not put an end to her business - hopes for an appeal instance.

- The sentence is unreasonable. The punishment is overly harsh. The article, sane by Alexander, provides for a penalty in the form of a fine, especially for a girl who previously rebellious and suffering from chronic diseases, ”commented Dmitry Gerasimov’s new lawyer Skochilenko.

The verdict will certainly be appealed, and in the new building of the city court of St. Petersburg, where large and spacious halls. Come there now. The meeting place is changing. Judges too. The time will be announced additionally. Only Sasha Skochilenko remains herself - the one she wanted to remain: honest, sincere, ill -world, who did not change her beliefs and did not repent that she wanted on Earth the world and understanding of the value of human life.