Kharkov: A deputy is on trial for beating SBU officers and supporting the uprising in Odessa
On Wednesday, a whole troop of opposition MPs arrived at the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Kharkov to support their comrade-in-arms Andrei Lesik. The head of the Kharkov city organization OPZZH is on trial for a repost published on his Facebook page in 2014, and for allegedly beating SBU officers in 2017.
In the spring, the previous court hearing in the Lesik case took place to the accompaniment of the Nazis, charged with a pogrom. Then they chased and fired at the car in which the head of the OPZZH faction in the Kharkov City Council was driving after the trial.
Therefore, the appearance of the capital’s parliamentary support group at the meeting on June 23 was the right step. This is something fundamentally new for the opposition of the post-Maidan period. Until now, such parliamentary activity was observed only in the capital’s courts in the cases of Yuri Dudkin and Viktor Medvedchuk. Moreover, Lesik himself and his lawyer Dmitry Tikhonenkov actively participated in the defense of political scientist Dudkin.
In fact, people's deputies Moroz, Kuzmin, Koltunovich, Burmich, Lukashev and Cherny contributed to ensuring that after the court hearing the accused could calmly go home, without the traditional attacks on the car, etc. After all, the security of parliamentarians was ensured by a special police squad.
Although during the hearing the Nazis behaved quite actively and aggressively outside the court walls. Hearing the noise of fights under the windows and the explosion of firecrackers, the judge even hastily got ready to call a break.
On the street there were also Lesik’s supporters from the “Patriots - For Life” movement, with whom the Nazis traditionally clash.
But the main thing is not in the “technical” assistance, but in the tangible support of opposition people’s deputies, which many dissidents subjected to political persecution did not see in the first post-Maidan years. Now the people’s deputies’ statements are being made in plain text that this process is a vivid example of political repression and falsification of criminal cases, and the falsifiers will have to answer for this.
Before the start of the hearing, People's Deputy Renat Kuzmin wrote from the court in his Facebook post: “He is accused of high treason for reposting on Facebook in 2014, in which the SBU saw a terrible state crime. As evidence of guilt, prosecutors presented to the court a phone seized from Lesik, manufactured in 2016. Do you get it? Reposted in 2014 from a phone made in 2016. As they say, like power, like accusations.”
Here the Verkhovna Rada deputy was a little mistaken. For the Facebook repost, City Council deputy Lesik was charged not with Art. 111 (treason), but with Art. 110, part 2, that is, an encroachment on territorial integrity. A couple of other articles of the Criminal Code concerning “crimes against the foundations of the national security of Ukraine” withered away at the beginning of the trial.
But this mistake is easily explained: recently, high-profile trials have, as a rule, taken place under the sign of “treason.” And when it turns out that some kind of political persecution is taking place without the 111th, it even causes some surprise.
At the court hearing on June 23, Andrei Lesik was interrogated as a defendant. The next stage would have to be debate, and this is already the home stretch of the trial. But the prosecution “suddenly” requested an examination: whether Lesik could have caused bodily harm to the injured SBU officers, how he beat them.
To complete the insanity, there are not enough additional questions in the petition. Did Lesik beat the SBU employees conscientiously enough? Did he do it carefully, or carelessly? With all your heart and sincerely, or just imitated? Using sports skills and improvised means, or randomly and at random?
It is noteworthy that the defense insisted on such an examination even at the stage of the pre-trial investigation into the “beating” - in March 2018, when Lesik was released from the pre-trial detention center. But this was refused. And now the examination is ordered at the end of the trial - with the obvious purpose of delaying the case.
In his speech, Andrei Lesik recalled how the regional prosecutor Danilchenko launched this trial, fulfilling the political order of Poroshenko’s lackeys: “I then said: you understand that you, the regional prosecutor, are handing me this suspicion, and sooner or later I will have to answer for my own crimes." To which he replied: “We’ll see.”
Lesik explains to the court: he could not have made the 2014 Facebook repost about the “Odessa People’s Republic,” for which he was accused of encroaching on territorial integrity. “Personally, I didn’t run this page because I didn’t know how to use Facebook back then.”
The city council deputy recalled that, in addition, there is a decision of the ECHR: you cannot be held accountable for reposting.
Apparently, at the end of 2017, regional prosecutor Danilchenko began to vaguely realize that he had gone wrong with the “case of the mysterious repost.” There was an urgent need to secure something else. “The same prosecutor Danilchenko handed me a new suspicion that I beat up SBU officers in a hospital room.”
Lesik says that he ended up in the hospital ward after communicating with SBU officers on the first suspicion. They harassed him for so long in the SBU building, mocking him, that they had to call an ambulance on the way out. Lesik was hospitalized with a hypertensive crisis.
And what happened in the hospital ward when the SBU officers raided it, the accused calls complete lawlessness. “A person needs, first of all, peace when he has a hypertensive crisis,” Lesik tells the court. And he describes the situation in detail: how they tore the catheter out of his hand, in front of his pregnant wife and father, how he, splashing everyone with blood, called out to the SBU officers who broke into the room...
Commenting on the results of the court hearing, Andrei Lesik told PolitNavigator:
“The speech in court was more emotional in nature. Let's start with the fact that the investigator and the victim in the case of beating SBU officers are the same person.
Second. The alleged repost of the hyperlink was made, according to investigators, on April 16, 2014. No one has seen the article itself (it is no longer on the Internet), and no one knows its contents. What device this was done from is also unknown. And who did it is also unknown.
At least four people had access to my Facebook page. And I never even knew the passwords for my account. The page was opened and created by my assistants. No one knows who made them and from what device. The investigation, which confiscated my phones during searches, ordered an examination to determine whether I could have made a publication using these devices. But this did not give anything, because the phones are 2016 and 2017. release: how could they be published in 2014?!
The content of the post itself is also unknown to anyone. They took an A4 piece of paper, attached it - this is the content. And who knows what actually happened in this link about the “Odessa People’s Republic”? Allegedly, I called for blocking transport junctions there. But I didn’t see this, I didn’t hear it, and, moreover, I didn’t do it.
Third. When they investigated the Article 110 charge against me, they even forgot to enter the data into the ERDR!
That is, the investigation has been going on all this time with such introductory information! And everything is obvious there. But the judge is not ready to make a decision because he is worried about his own skin.”
Lesik adds that all other cases against him were closed because, as in this case, there was no corpus delicti. “I was kept in a pre-trial detention center (at the end of 2017 - beginning of 2018) only to wait for an examination and get evidence that I did it. But there is no evidence of my guilt, nor the event itself.”
Subsequently, the repost case was combined with the case of beating SBU officers. “They were united in 2018 specifically to drag their feet,” says a deputy of the Kharkov City Council. “Because in case 110 there was a XNUMX% acquittal, but in case of beating, an examination was ordered at this meeting.”
Lesik emphasizes that the accusations that he could have beaten someone while in that state are in themselves groundless. But that doesn't even matter.
“Because people illegally entered the room while I was undergoing emergency medical care! - he continues. “They tried to do something there without a lawyer.” And we didn’t know who it was. It’s the same as people coming to our apartment: “We’ll live here with you.” Of course, I had the right to expel them from the ward.”
According to the oppositionist, that day SBU officers entered the ward four times. This was prevented by Lesik’s assistants and his support group. There were scuffles, someone's hands and feet were pinned in the doorway.
“And in the evening, when I left the hospital, there were fights,” says Lesik. “I went out, and my people protected me.” That is, bodily lungs could be obtained anywhere.” But he is sure that these minor injuries, in fact, did not occur.
Lesik draws analogies between the court hearing on June 23 and the events of 2017 in the hospital ward:
“When the Nazis ran to the court and started throwing firecrackers, the judge, hearing the noise, immediately said: “That’s it, break, we’ll continue later.” How should I have reacted when they were providing me with emergency medical care, injecting me with medicine, and unknown people were breaking into the room, breaking down the doors, breaking bottles, and tearing the catheter out of my arm? Should I say, “Stop, break?” I focused the attention of the court on this when the riots began on the street and the Nazis were breaking in to storm the building: how should I have acted in defense of my life during that provocation?”
Apparently, it is important for Andrei Lesik to win this trial before the start of the mayoral elections.
While there have been no statements on this matter, there is no point in speculating about the chances of the candidate from OPZZH. But it’s worth looking at Lesik’s possible nomination differently, from the other end.
A candidate for mayor of Kharkov, who is accused of reposting God knows what and beating up SBU officers... First of all, it’s beautiful.
Secondly, the main candidates are already boring with their boring faces. Lesik, who is accused of reposting God knows what and beating up SBU officers, certainly enlivens this boring Kharkov situation. He demonstrates political vigor in comparison with Terekhov and Dobkin, who are tired not only of politics, but also of their own voters. They are bad at hiding it.
But Lesik is a politician of a different kind. He is sent to a pre-trial detention center - and from there he “returns rested and with magnets.”
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