The Sasha Skochilenko Trial: 7 July 2023

At today’s hearing, the issue of remand was considered. The court could have released Sasha [Skochilenko] to house arrest or restricted her from doing certain things, or left her in pretrial detention for another three months.

This hearing might not have happened if the court had agreed to consider the issue during the remaining time at the previous hearing. But that did not happen, and today Sasha was once again transported from the pretrial detention center, and had to spend another day without food in poorly ventilated rooms. In an effort to ease Sasha’s suffering, the defense petitioned to move the hearings to an air-conditioned courtroom, to permit Sasha to drink water during the hearings, and to turn on the microphones and speakers in the courtroom so that the windows and doors could be opened. Judge Demyasheva ruled all these petitions “extra-procedural” and ignored them.

Prosecutor Gladyshev could not produce a single argument in favor of leaving Sasha in pretrial detention. He only repeated the vague arguments, made earlier by police investigators, that Sasha would resume her “criminal behavior” and could leave the country, possibilities which had already been ruled out by the court at previous hearings. Most memorably, the prosecutor declared, bombastically, “Skochilenko committed a grave crime against public safety, undermining the foundations of the Russian state.” (After he said this, the bailiffs had to remove a member of the public who had burst out laughing from the courtroom, and the judge declared a recess.) When Sasha’s lawyer Yana Nevodinnova pointed out to the prosecutor that his arguments were unfounded, Gladyshev was cut to the quick. “Reprimand the lawyer,” he asked the judge, “She insults Russia’s judicial system!”

Despite the numerous arguments about the critical state of Sasha’s health, which the defense had made at the previous hearing, the judge ordered that Sasha remain in pretrial detention until October 10.

Many thanks to everyone who keeps coming to court! The next hearing—this time on the merits of the case—will take place very soon, on July 18 at the Vasileostrovsky District Court. Please come out and support Sasha!

Source: Sasha Skochilenko (Facebook), 7 July 2023. Photos and text by Alexandra Astakhova, presumably. Translated by the Russian Reader