Torture and mayhem. The Kyiv regime is tightening political repression
An article of the Criminal Code, which could have hit ex-President Petro Poroshenko, was used against the arrested Kyiv political scientist Yuri Dudkin (on the right in the title photo). Suspicion of treason does not require an unalternative preventive measure, but Ukrainian courts apply the previous sanction.
Lawyer Dmitry Tikhonenkov, who represents Dudkin’s interests, talks about trials with political overtones and political prisoners in recent years.
— What is happening in the case of political scientist Yuri Dudkin?
— On February 27, I learned from Kharkov City Council deputy Andrei Lesik that the sons of Yuri Dudkin had approached him. He offered to defend the political scientist free of charge.
I immediately called Yaroslav, Dudkin’s eldest son. He gave a short text of the decision of the Pechersk court dated February 25 on detention. On March 1, I visited Yuri Dudkin in the pre-trial detention center. I was, in fact, the first person who came to him after his arrest (at the time of the election of a preventive measure, he had a free state lawyer).
On the same day, I filed a short appeal because I did not yet have the full text of the ruling. In this complaint, he indicated that when I have the full text, I will file an amended complaint, where I will specifically outline my arguments why Dudkin should not be in custody. On March 2, I had the full text of the definition in my hands. And on March 4, in the morning, before the meeting of the Court of Appeal, I filed a final complaint. But the secretary told me that there would be no meeting: the materials from the Pechersky District Court had not yet arrived.
On Thursday, March 18, seeing that the prosecutor was not in the courtroom, I realized that the hearing would not take place. Because the question of a preventive measure is not considered in the absence of a prosecutor. A day earlier, a new judge-reporter was appointed, since the previous judge went on sick leave. The prosecutor did not appear, although he was officially notified.
- What a surprise!
- It's strange anyway. Because a group of prosecutors always works on such cases. If one couldn’t do it, another appeared. The meeting was known in advance. This means that the following tactics were chosen: not very good, not very beautiful. The defense still asked to hold a hearing, although they understood that the court would refuse.
I asked the court to take a break and urgently summon the prosecutor to court to consider changing the preventive measure for Dudkin. But the judge cited a busy schedule. Although, in fact, all its other meetings were not important in comparison with the issue of human freedom.
On this day, we recalled how in April 2014, when the issue of a preventive measure for 64 people detained in the case of the seizure of the Kharkov Regional Administration was being decided, the investigative judges of the Kyiv District Court of Kharkov worked for XNUMX hours. And, for example, “Topaz” (Kromsky) was brought to trial at night.
When a person needs to be taken into custody, everything happens very quickly and at any time. And when it comes to release, when there are motivated complaints, prosecutors may simply not appear in court, and no one bears any responsibility. This is a bad practice.
In a good way, it is necessary to generally make changes to the Code of Criminal Procedure. If the prosecutor's office behaves in this way, consider this an admission of the complaint. And in case of failure to appear in court and similar gross abuses on the part of the prosecutor’s office, when the case is being heard on its merits, consider this as a refusal of the charge.
— Why such an inadequate preventive measure for a political scientist?
— Let me remind you that after the Maidan, a law was adopted, signed, in my opinion, by Turchinov. And then sanctions were tightened under articles relating to “crimes against the fundamentals of national security,” including Article 111 (treason). And from the point of view of the criminal process, Part 5 of Article 176 was introduced, which stated that if people are suspected and accused under these articles, then while the judicial investigation and trial are ongoing, they must be in custody, there can be no bail.
Then I wrote a couple of articles. A scientific article regarding this norm (Part 5 of Article 176 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) was published in Belarus. I wrote that this should not be done, it is wrong. The logic was this: someone by mistake, out of malicious intent, suspects a person - the suspect is sitting in a pre-trial detention center, and this can last a long time. And then it turns out that he is not guilty... That is, such an article of the Code of Criminal Procedure violates human rights, it is unconstitutional. Then the Constitutional Court actually declared this article unconstitutional.
— Yeah, the KS expanded until 2019.
“I associate the abolition of this norm with the fact that the government has changed. Those people who, after the Maidan, wanted to use this article against political opponents, by 2019 themselves found themselves in the risk zone. For example, Poroshenko and his entourage, if they are suspected under the same articles (“crimes against the foundations of national security”), fall for their own bait and end up in a pre-trial detention center.
And given that their influence still remained in the Constitutional Court, they proactively took care to recognize this norm as unconstitutional. Not because they were worried about people, but because they were worried about themselves. This is how I imagine it. But I can’t say for sure.
— But this also suited Zelensky’s team: they can crush Poroshenko as much as they want, but they won’t have to take responsibility for putting him in a pre-trial detention center?
— It would be necessary to study the question of who applied to the Constitutional Court, who motivated it. But it so happened that Poroshenko and his people lost power - and the article was immediately declared unconstitutional.
— You talked with Dudkin. What does he think about what is happening? Is a campaign against political scientists possible?
“When we talked, he asked me for silence, so as not to cause harm, not to tell the enemy in advance about our plans. Naturally, he and I talked about the fact that after the channels are closed they are getting personal. It is not enough to close channels - there are people who express their thoughts and ideas similar to those voiced on closed channels. And they are at risk.
Having talked with different people, I understood that all this could affect Pogrebinsky and other people who quite often spoke on these channels and on Russian ones. If we let Dudkin go now, hand him over to be torn to pieces, then this will be a precedent for the authorities: this can be done...
“The right to express one’s thoughts has already been equated to treason and they are brazenly substituting concepts...
— In general, Article 111 is a separate issue. For treason, I defended Mehdi Logunov and another guy. They were both traded.
What does this article typically assume? An official who has access to state secrets, to classified information, is charged with recording this information on some medium for the purpose of transmission. Moreover, the transfer does not have to take place.
All these articles of the Criminal Code (treason, espionage) have a formal composition. What does it mean? Articles with material content, such as theft, imply that consequences must occur. For example, if a person’s money was stolen, it left his circulation. And here is simply the fact that a person began to collect information. It is not necessary for there to be consequences. Action is enough. This is a formal crime. It is considered completed from the moment the act is committed.
In thefts, rapes, murders there is an act and a consequence, and there must be a cause-and-effect relationship between them. That is, the prosecutor must prove and the lawyer must refute three signs. But in treason the elements are formal - only the act is proven. Consequences may not occur.
Dmitry Tikhonenkov (left) in the Court of Appeal in the case of Yuri Dudkin, March 18.
For my clients it looked like this. In 2017, a certain person gave 83-year-old Mehdi Feofanovich Logunov a flash drive, allegedly secret information. Hearings on such cases were closed. When the verdicts are posted, the names are not indicated, but “person 1”, “person 2”. I do not have access to classified information. But regarding Mehdi Logunov, classified information was not used in court. That is, the court had all the sources that were not secret. And according to my other client, we also did not study the sources, which were a secret.
That guy was exchanged and pardoned. But Mehdi Logunov did not write a petition for pardon. They came to him with this, but he refused. 85-year-old Mehdi Logunov was pardoned by Zelensky in 2019.
After the exchange, we filed a cassation. Because Mehdi Feofanovich did not ask anyone to have mercy on himself, he did not admit his guilt.
Two or three weeks ago, the verdict on Logunov came, the final full text from the Supreme Court (before that, only a condensed part was announced to us via videoconference). And now there is an opportunity to appeal this verdict to the ECHR.
— That is, the courts of all instances in this country considered that 83-year-old Mehdi Logunov was the spy “Walter”, an agent of the GRU? Did you take on faith this is all that Tsaplienko poured into your ears from the “1+1” channel?!
— Mehdi Logunov was also charged with a bunch of other episodes: that he traveled to all sorts of outskirts of the city of Kharkov and collected some information. More than ten prosecution witnesses (except for one, encrypted, who gave him the flash drive) said that the grandfather had nothing to do with it. And in the court of first instance, they wrote in the verdict that he was found innocent in all cases except one, when he was given a flash drive allegedly containing secret information. But we proceeded from the fact that it was a provocation.
- Why is it not taken into account that this was a provocation of a crime?
- Well, I should have seen the judge. He would never have acquitted.
— There is a precedent when, in a case with political overtones (against your client Lesik), the judge refused to sully the honor of his mantle.
“Judge Nevyadomsky then acted according to the law. It takes courage.
We can also recall the judge of the Court of Appeal who considered the appeal of Yuri Apukhtin. We stated that all sorts of citations in the verdict of the trial court do not correspond to the records they refer to. For several speeches on Freedom Square at rallies, Apukhtin was charged with Article 109 (calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order). So, on this part he was found not guilty on appeal. The appeal overturned the decision of the Kyiv District Court on all five episodes that concerned calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order.
All that remained was the organization of mass riots. Allegedly, he organized the beating of buses that were taking away security forces after the cleansing of the KhDA on April 8, 2014. On this charge, Apukhtin has already spent time in a pre-trial detention center under the sanctions of the article. But he would have been released anyway, because on the same day he was being taken for exchange. There are two employees, regardless of the outcome of the appeal, they hand it over to these people. This is not stated anywhere in the Code of Criminal Procedure, but this is the practice that has developed.
— Has it been proven that Apukhtin organized the bus pogrom??
- All the prosecution witnesses said that he did not come to the building of the Regional State Administration, but was in the square all the time, in sight. That is, he was not involved in any way in the pogrom of buses. But 9 months after Apukhtin’s arrest, the prosecution found three Maidan witnesses who testified using carbon copies that he allegedly shouted something incomprehensible, gave incomprehensible orders, waved his arms... And this dubious evidence was enough for a verdict.
— Under those conditions, was it impossible to completely acquit those accused in political cases?
— There was an acquittal for policemen Roman Vladimirov and Sergei Klimenko from Rubezhne, Lugansk region. In the summer of 2014, they were detained at a checkpoint of the Chernigov territorial battalion, beaten, and planted with TNT in their car. They were accused of a terrorist act and transportation of TNT.
At first, Klimenko managed to be released from the pre-trial detention center due to illness. And Vladimirov was released when the prosecutor himself, realizing that there was no evidence, dropped charges for the terrorist attack. All that remains is the charge of transporting weapons (TNT). But ultimately, the panel of judges of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Kharkov issued an acquittal. And he survived in all instances.
Now Evgeniy Nadolya from our law firm is handling a claim for compensation for moral damage. By the way, similar compensation was recently awarded to journalist Pavel Volkov, a political prisoner who was completely acquitted by the court.
— You are familiar firsthand with the established practice when a court verdict is tied to an exchange. How can a person then prove his innocence?
- Here is an example - the trial of the explosion near the Sports Palace on February 22, 2015. The investigation into such a complex case lasted for a month and a half. We were in such a hurry. I entered the process when the case was already in court, and began to defend Viktor Tetyutsky. What I learned from him and what I saw: apart from the confession obtained under torture, there is no other real evidence.
Now I continue to work on Tetyutsky’s complaint about the use of torture against him. They closed the case and he filed a complaint. The fact must be entered into the ERDR. This matter has been delayed for several years for various reasons.
When the exchange was already underway, the three accused had a dilemma. They spent almost five years, from February 2015 to December 2019. And according to Savchenko’s law it would be 10 years. They wanted to fight to the end. We were already reaching the finish line. And everything was presented this way: no one will be changed if there is no verdict. It wasn't true, but that's how it was presented.
I also had another client (in a different case) who did not admit his guilt, but he was still taken to the exchange. From this I realized that there was a game going on here. Everyone is forced to go to the verdict. But if there had been no verdict, they would still have been taken to the exchange. However, there was some risk. Therefore, I convinced Tetyutsky and his two comrades to go to the verdict: the main thing is that all the petitions that they wanted to submit were voiced and included. We had it all ready. And as soon as they were given a life sentence with confiscation, it seems to me that within five minutes they were leaving the pre-trial detention center for an exchange. And then it turned out that an appeal was filed, the verdict did not come into force.
If previously people were put on the wanted list when people did not appear in court for a year after an exchange, then here they did it simply. Tetyutsky writes from Lugansk: I ask you to postpone the meeting, I can’t come, due to Covid, etc., I definitely want to participate. But the panel of judges immediately puts Tetyutsky and his comrades on the wanted list. The prosecutor generally states that they should be at home! I say: “What are you talking about? The prosecutor's office and the SBU themselves transported them for exchange. And now you say they escaped. This is nonsense. Everyone understands everything. Moreover, there is Covid.”
The people themselves showed up and wrote to the court asking to postpone the hearing. But the court immediately puts him on the wanted list.
— Ukraine has taken upon itself the obligation to legally clear those people it sends for exchange. But this is not being done, as subsequent courts show.
“Here they simply believe that the cleanup consists of the following: the verdict is announced, it comes into force, and Zelensky has mercy. They had such a scheme.
But then the question arises. For example, there is not a single piece of evidence regarding a person (like one of my clients); five panels of judges have changed. Moreover, I point out to them the violation, they accept their own challenge, just not to hear the case (because there is nothing there). The man says: “I am innocent.” And they offer him a sentence and then a pardon. But for such people this is not cleansing. This means that they must admit to something they did not do, admit to a serious crime. This is nonsense, not cleaning.
I proposed a different scheme. It lies in the fact that on the one hand there are the interests of the state, and on the other hand the interests of the citizen. Why is cleansing and all these exchanges taking place at the expense of people? Why do they have to plead guilty in order to be exchanged and pardoned? Why doesn’t the prosecutor, for example, drop the charges? Dropping charges is also a cleansing process. If your personal rights have priority, then drop the charges.
I defended a guy who was accused of committing sabotage. There were three explosions, from which no one was injured - only railway property. When I entered the trial two years later, the case materials had not yet been studied, but witnesses were still being questioned. Witnesses are only witnesses who were present at the investigative experiment. That is, there are no witnesses! There is no physical evidence, nothing.
Therefore, in this case, representatives of the state dreamed of an agreement with the accused. And he would have been released for exchange. But he resisted. And in this case, it would be honest: without evidence, do not drag your feet, but drop the accusation.
And you can generally remember how almost all the people detained in the KhORGA on April 8, 2014, after their release, they tried to exchange them.
—Are you already accustomed to the absurdity in trials?
— We are increasingly faced with this. There was the case of Sergei Yudaev, based on the events of April 6-8, 2014. According to the verdict, Yudaev was amnestied for the time served. And, according to the verdict, he should have been immediately released in the courtroom.
The head of the convoy, Oleg Petukhov, carries out the court decision. Sergei Yudaev came out of the cage, immediately lay down on the bench (he had been beaten in the pre-trial detention center the day before), and an ambulance was called for him.
Then an investigator appears in court and tries to charge the released person with new suspicions. The bottom line is this: on Friday, November 3, 2017, three days before the trial, Yudaev was transferred to another pre-trial detention center. On Saturday, during a conflict with another prisoner, according to the investigator, Sergei allegedly beat this man. And on Monday, November 6, Yudaev was brought to trial with signs of beatings. But within two days they had already “drawn” Article 122 of the Criminal Code on him: he allegedly inflicted moderate bodily harm. Because taking people into custody for minor injuries is somehow absurd. But how did they immediately determine this average severity?! They start a case right away! Obviously, in order to immediately take Yudaev away and not let him out.
But the court's decision was carried out, Yudaev is free, and the investigator lost track of him. And then the head of the convoy, Petukhov, is taken into custody simply because he complied with the court’s decision. Due to the fact that a lot of money was allegedly spent searching for Yudaev. The head of the convoy cannot detain anyone at all. He can be brought to the courtroom, and if there is a court verdict, he can be released from behind bars.
Oleg Petukhov died due to illness in the winter of this year. On March 3 he would have turned 33 years old. From his father, Ivan Nikolaevich, an application is received to continue the consideration of the case with the aim of rehabilitating his son, and not simply closing it based on the fact of death. It is to ensure that he is found not guilty posthumously.
On March 22 we will have a meeting on this case, debate is possible. And March 26th is the verdict. If the prosecutor appears. On March 17, she did not appear at the meeting (like the Kiev prosecutor at the meeting on Dudkin).
We believe in a positive result.
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