Tag: Alexei Gaskarov

A Fiancee’s Diary: At the Bolotnaya Square Trial

Originally published (in Russian) at:
http://www.snob.ru/profile/27375/blog/64533
http://gaskarov.info/post/59772586016

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Anna Karpova
A Fiancée’s Diary: “The defense’s question is disallowed since it is irrelevant to the case”
August 30, 2013

I already find it trying either to write or read about the Bolotnaya Square case. The trial began in early June. The court hearings are held three times a week, Tuesday through Thursday, from eleven-thirty in the morning to six or seven in the evening, but each new hearing is a repeat of the previous ones, the same combination of utterances by the judge and state prosecutor, except in a different order. “The defense’s question is disallowed a) as stated; b) since it is irrelevant to the case; c) as repetitive.”

I would not be following these events so closely myself did they not concern me personally. But my fiancé, Alexei Gaskarov, is under investigation and in police custody, and I have no choice but to monitor the “Trial of the Twelve” carefully in order to gauge my chances of seeing Alexei freed as soon as possible.

All this time I have deliberately avoided going into the courtroom at the Moscow City Court where the Bolotnaya Square case is being heard, preferring to watch the live broadcast in the court hallway or observe the circus from the press balcony. If I had the chance not to go to the court hearings in Alexei’s case, I would skip those as well. It is one thing to talk with the emotional parents of the prisoners outside the courthouse and see photos of the defendants in the press, but quite another thing to see relatives and loved ones silently communicating through the glass of the “aquarium” in which the defendants are caged during the hearings, and realize they have had no other means of supporting each other for over a year now.

Yesterday, August 29, I went to the trial to keep Tanya Polikhovich company. It was the birthday of her husband, Alexei Polikhovich, one of the twelve defendants. Alexei’s dad, Alexei Polikhovich, Sr., happily greeted us in the hallway of the court.

“Alexei already celebrated his birthday with the guys in the cell as best he could. They drank soda pop from the pretrial detention facility store, and he blew out three lit matches. Why three? Because he has turned twenty-three!”

A bailiff opened the door and ushered relatives into the courtroom. Although Alexei Gaskarov is not among the first twelve defendants, Alexei Polikhovich, Sr., put his arm around my shoulders and led me to the seats near the dock. The guys in the dock pressed themselves against the glass and waved to their loved ones, smiling. Stepan Zimin was particularly glad to see his girlfriend Sasha. She had come to the trial for the first time: she was no longer considered an official witness in the case, something that had prevented her from attending the hearings. Sasha and Stepan made eye contact and kept their eyes on each other until the very end of the hearing, which would be disrupted by people in the gallery. (But more on that later.)

Yaroslav Belousov, Andrei Barabanov and Denis Lutskevich were seated in the dock closest to where I was sitting. Alexei Polikhovich sat in the farthest section of the dock. Tanya attracted his attention by waving to him. Then she unfolded a t-shirt with Dandy the Elephant emblazoned on it. Polikhovich gave a two thumbs-up sign: the t-shirt was a birthday present for him. Lutskevich kept his eyes glued on his lovely mother, Stella. Throughout the hearing they would surprise me with their amazing ability to hold a conversation merely by glancing at each other. Andrei Barabanov was looking at other people in the gallery, because his girlfriend, Katya, is unable to attend the hearings: she is an official witness in the case.

a6f62022c6ef135f3dd63c3831be8f39While I was examining the animated faces of the guys in the dock, Judge Natalya Nikishina entered the courtroom. As always, defendant Sergei Krivov addressed her.

“I have a motion I haven’t been allowed to enter for two days running!”

“Shut up, Krivov,” the judge cut him off.

“No, listen, you have to hear my motion!”

“I am cautioning you for causing a disruption in the courtroom, Krivov!”

“And I’m cautioning you for not hearing my motion!”

Then the testimony of the sixth “victim” in the case, riot police officer Alexander Algunov, began: the case file contains a medical certificate stating that his right hand was injured during the alleged “riots” on May 6, 2012, in Moscow, during a sanctioned opposition march. I stopped listening to Algunov’s monotonous, muddled testimony and looked back to the dock, making eye contact with Lutskevich. Denis smiled broadly, and I wrote the phrase “Gaskarov says hi!” in big, block letters in my notebook. I tried to quietly raise my postcard so the guys would see it, but the bailiffs noticed it as well. “Well, now they’ll kick me out of the courtroom,” I thought, and a bailiff, dressed in black, moved towards me. I put the notebook away and got a warning. The bailiff took up a spot next to the glass cage, blocking my view of the guys, but they leaned forward and, peering from behind him, waved at me and smiled.

While this was going on, the state prosecutor was asking to hold a police lineup right in the courtroom, despite the fact it violated court rules.

“Do you see the person or persons who assaulted police officers among those present in the dock?”

The lawyers jumped up from their seats. Defense attorneys referred to the sections of the law under which the procedure could not be carried out in court. Chin propped on her hand and smiling, Judge Nikishina slowly said, “Algunov, answer the prosecutor’s question.”

Algunov “recognized,” as he put it, “the man in the t-shirt,” nodding towards Krivov, then he also pointed out the two female defendants, Alexandra Naumova (née Dukhanina) and Maria Baronova. After which he told the court how protesters had, allegedly, shouted “Let’s go to Red Square!” and “Let’s take the Kremlin!”

As always, Makarov, who is defending Krivov, was completely prepared to cross-examine the victim, but as the hearing entered its sixth hour, people in the court gallery interrupted his cross-examination. Two young women jumped up on their seats and began singing “Bella Ciao,” the Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance song. But they did not succeed in unfurling a small banner congratulating Alexei Polikhovich on his birthday: six men in plain clothes grabbed them and removed them from the courtroom, along with everyone else in the gallery, including the relatives. Artyom Naumov, husband of Alexandra Naumova, recognized two of the men as people who had carried out a search at Alexandra’s apartment.

Everyone was now standing in the hallway, and the parents were upset. It would have been better to stage the unsuccessful performance after the hearing was over. Alexandra Naumova left the courtroom, and the judge announced a recess until next Tuesday.

Before leaving, Judge Nikishina remarked, disgruntled, that come September, hearings should be held five days a week to get this over quickly.

From left to right: Sasha (Stepan Zimin’s girlfriend), Tanya Polikhovich, Anna Karpova

The Russian State’s War against the Boy Next Door (Alexei Gaskarov)

Alexei Gaskarov, Civic Activist, Opposition Coordinating Council Member,
and Anti-Fascist, to Remain in Police Custody until October 6
Natalya Zotova
Novaya Gazeta
June 25, 2013

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“Phones on vibrate mode, keep your comments to yourself. Young woman, don’t talk to him!” a bailiff interrupts a young woman in a “Free Alexei Gaskarov” t-shirt (Gaskarov’s fiancée Anna Karpova). Gaskarov himself stands behind bars and peers into the courtroom. Today is a hearing on whether to extend his detention in police custody and thus one of the few days when family and friends can see him.

Defense counsel Svetlana Sidorkina motioned for several pledges to stand surety, including those made by Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov and Rain TV owner Alexander Vinokurov (who came to court in person), to be entered into the record, as well as positive character references of the defendant submitted by the Opposition Coordinating Council (to which Gaskarov was elected with twenty-two thousand votes) and its local analogue, the Zhukovsky People’s Council. Igor Volk, a cosmonaut and Hero of the Soviet Union, and Vladimir Kondratenko, a distinguished Soviet test pilot, also honored Gaskarov with positive letters of reference. Sidorkina likewise motioned for a petition, signed by five hundred residents of Zhukovsky (where Gaskarov was born and lives), calling for less severe pre-trial restrictions, and media articles detailing Gaskarov’s activities as an anti-fascist and public figure, to be entered into the record. “Would someone hiding from the law be engaged in social activism?” she asked.

Investigator Alexei Bykov predictably asked the court not to admit most of this into the record: “The main character reference for Gaskarov—that he was part of a group of people that attacked police officers—is quite sufficient.” From his cage, Gaskarov reiterated to the judge that he had pulled a police officer away from a demonstrator whom the officer was attempting to detain, but that he did not regard this as a violent confrontation: he had no intention of hurting the policeman and caused him no physical harm. Gaskarov himself was beaten on Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012, and soon afterwards he filed a complaint against the riot police who had attacked him, along with a medical report on his injuries. “This shows I had no intention of going into hiding,” he explained to the judge in the quiet, calm voice one uses to pacify a child.

Bykov read, it seems, from the same document as during Gaskarov’s arrest hearing in April, because the language was the same: “[Gaskarov] led a secretive life, changed places of residence, and planned to go into hiding abroad.” Except before it had simply been “abroad”; now the record also contains “countries with anti-Russian sentiments,” where, according to the investigation, Gaskarov often traveled.

Yegor Ozherelyev, a colleague of Gaskarov’s from the consulting company Expert Systems, came to court in person to deny that Gaskarov had been in hiding before his arrest. He showed that Gaskarov was a responsible employee who successfully coped with any task and came to work punctually, being absent only when he had been met outside the office by members of the security services and taken away for a “chat.”

Sidorkina moved that Gaskarov be released on bail: his mother had pledged her apartment, which is valued at 3.5 million rubles [approx. 81,000 euros] and where her son is officially registered. “He owns no apartment. The mom is a different person,” said the prosecutor in his objection to the motion.

A new witness has emerged in the Gaskarov case. His identity is classified, like that of the previous two witnesses, but unlike them, he is not a police officer but someone who identifies himself as a member of the anarchist movement. According to his testimony, he fears for his life, because “activists don’t like cooperating with the police.” He claims that the goal of the anarchists is confrontation with the state system, and their ideology centers on violent action.

“They’re following the Khimki scenario. When they don’t have enough evidence, they put together false testimony. I think this person doesn’t exist,” says Gaskarov’s girlfriend Anna Karpova.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Svetlana Sidorkina delivered an impassioned speech.

“Since I have gotten to know him better, I have begun to respect my client five times more. I have never met a person with such ideal character references: everyone, young and old, speaks of him as a remarkable man. If he were freed, he would be of far greater benefit to the country. The investigator has not specified how Alexei could hinder the investigation [were he released from police custody].”

“Sufficient grounds have not be adduced for not extending the arrest,” the prosecutor said laconically in closing. People in the courtroom laughed helplessly.

Judge Skuridina extended Alexei Gaskarov’s arrest for three month and eight days, until October 6.

Photo by Yevgeny Feldman for Novaya Gazeta

Original article in Russian

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Moscow activist Ilya Budraitskis:

Today Alexei Gaskarov’s detention in police custody was extended until October 6, that is, until the official conclusion of the Bolotnaya Square investigation. I no longer have the strength to describe all the shit that went down at the Basmanny district court. The only thing worth noting is the expanded version of the report issued by Center “E” [the “anti-extremism” police], which was read aloud by Judge Skuridina. Autonomous Action and “other radical leftist groups” are now openly identified as sources of permanent anti-state violence, and the motive for keeping Alexei in custody is his “authority within that milieu.” This in fact is the answer to a frequently asked question. How does Gaskarov’s case stand out from the Bolotnaya Square case as a whole? By its clear, no longer merely political, but ideological orientation. We are dealing here with a show trial aimed specifically against the radical left, publicly recognized as a potential threat. And disrupting it is a matter of our common future. So follow the campaign at gaskarov.info. Make suggestions, participate and, most important, don’t lose heart.

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Lyosha Gaskarov: Not a Word about Politics