Five political prisoners in Kharkov were released on the eve of Victory Day. Dozens remain behind bars (PHOTOS)
Kharkov, May 08 (Navigator, Dmitry Gubin, Sergey Kochetov) – On Thursday evening, journalist and political scientist Konstantin Dolgov, as well as three other people detained during the “Russian Spring” in Kharkov, left the pre-trial detention center. A new preventive measure has been chosen for them, one that does not involve imprisonment.
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Even in the morning, no one believed in victory. Dolgov's mother took the parcel to her son in the pre-trial detention center. “No, he won’t be released today. The transfer was accepted, the books that he asked for two weeks ago - Pushkin, Bulgakov, Dostoevsky - were finally given to him,” said Lyudmila Dolgova, “They explained to me that even if bail is paid, the court has a day left to make a decision. Moreover, the holidays are coming...”
Indeed, during the holidays, Kharkov found itself “stuffed” with police and, according to some information, Right Sector militants. Both of them are designed to prevent “provocations of Russian activists”, which the “Maidan authorities” of both Kharkov and Kyiv are so afraid of. Just yesterday, St. George's ribbons were banned as symbols of an enemy state. It was difficult to imagine any “liberating” decisions on the part of the court.
However, it should be noted that the day before, under pressure from Dolgov’s lawyers (there are three of them - Dmitry Tikhonenkov, Kirill Beloshitsky, Alexander Shadrin), the court reduced the amount of bail in the case from 600 thousand UAH to 360 thousand.
According to Dolgov’s defenders, the court violated all “conceivable and inconceivable rules of law and articles of the procedural code.” On May 7, immediately after the meeting, lawyer Kirill Beloshitsky told the press that the court refused to issue a decision until May 12 that the detainee could be released from custody if the newly assigned bail amount was paid.
“The court does not have time to prepare a decision. We’ll have to wait until the end of the holidays,” the court said.
But the court and Dolgov’s opponents did not take into account a simple thing: firstly, if it’s about money, they will collect it. Secondly, May 8 is a working day.
As a result, the bail amount of 365 thousand 400 UAH was prepared by 12 o'clock on May 8. For this, special thanks to the People's Deputy of Ukraine Oleg Tsarev, as well as to the guarantors - Alla Aleksandrovskaya, Vladimir Alekseev, Pyotr Mazur, Lev Mirimsky.
Today, lawyer Dmitry Tikhonenkov, who arrived at the court at 9 a.m., understood that the situation was ambiguous: the court could refuse to accept bail, or it could accept bail, but find new reasons to keep the detainee in custody.
When rumors spread that Dolgov was not being released even on bail, Konstantin’s colleagues and friends, representatives of the public, and comrades in the protest movement gathered near the building. The wait for a decision lasted more than three hours, interspersed with bureaucratic delays, which were clearly intentional.
We can even name the name of an employee of the Kharkov Court of Appeal - Elena Zakopailo. It was she who was rude to the lawyers and openly stated that until “May 12 you will not receive anything...”. For some reason, she really wanted to leave Dolgov and other prisoners of the “Kharkov spring” in custody. “Today is a short day, the eve of a holiday. They are trying to drag out the case so that it is technically impossible to release people,” said lawyer Dmitry Tikhonenkov.
However, in the end the defense managed to turn the situation around. At about 17 p.m., lawyer Tikhonenkov arrived at the Kharkov pre-trial detention center with a decision to release Dolgov from custody on bail, but with a special regime that he undertakes not to violate (failure to leave, appear on demand, etc.).
Together with his lawyer, Konstantin Dolgov was met at the gates of the pre-trial detention center by colleagues and friends, film crews from Russian TV channels. None of the correspondents of Ukrainian TV channels or the press were there.
Together with Konstantin Dolgov, Vladimir Shcherbina, Vadim Momot and Oleg Krutov, who were detained in the building of the Kharkov Regional State Administration on April 8, were released from custody. The amounts of deposits that were paid for them are 97.44 thousand UAH, 146.16 thousand UAH and 97,44 thousand UAH, respectively.
A little earlier, Yuri Apukhtin, the leader of the South-East movement, who was detained on April 30, was released from custody. Activist Spartak Golovachev, who was arrested along with Apukhtin, was denied bail to change the preventive measure. The wife of the detainee, Victoria Golovacheva, recalled this. She came to the pre-trial detention center to meet her husband’s friends who had been released from custody.
Yesterday, May 7, lawyer Alexander Shadrin filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in connection with the court’s refusal to set bail for Yegor Logvinov, Sergei Yudaev and other prisoners of the “Kharkiv Spring” who were arrested in the building of the regional state administration.
“Dozens of Kharkiv residents remain political prisoners while the real criminals responsible for the deaths of Kharkiv residents on Rymarskaya walk the streets with impunity,” recalled Dolgov, who was released from the pre-trial detention center.
No sooner had Konstantin left the gate than he was summoned to the investigator to “carry out investigative actions.” When asked how he would celebrate May 9, Kostya said: “I will celebrate the victory. This is our holiday! We will live, we will fight...”
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