{"id":3585,"date":"2019-06-03T13:40:44","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T10:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/?p=3585"},"modified":"2019-06-03T13:40:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T10:40:46","slug":"the-network-trials-pinning-the-code-on-the-defendants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/2019\/06\/03\/the-network-trials-pinning-the-code-on-the-defendants\/","title":{"rendered":"The Network Trials: Pinning the \u201cCode\u201d on the Defendants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Petersburg Network Trial Defendants Viktor Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinov. Photo by Alexander Koryakov. Courtesy of Kommersant<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecution Tries to Pin \u201cCode\u201d on Network Defendants<\/strong>
\nAnna Pushkarskaya
\nKommersant<\/a>
\nMay 21, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Volga District Military Court \nrejected the defense\u2019s motion to send the Penza segment of the so-called\n Network case back to prosecutors. The prosecution has alleged the \ndefendants established the Network (an organization now officially \nbanned in the Russian Federation), a \u201cterrorist community\u201d of \nanarchists, in order to overthrow the regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today in Penza the prosecution will begin presenting its case against the seven defendants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This stage of the trial has been \ncompleted in Petersburg, where Viktor Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinov are \non trial for their alleged involvement in the community. Their defense \nattorneys have moved to disallow key pieces of evidence in the \nprosecution\u2019s case and summon Penza FSB investigator Valery Tokarev and \nPetersburg FSB field officer Konstantin Bondarev to the stand. The two \nFSB officers have been accused by the defendants of torturing them with \nelectrical shocks. The Moscow District Military Court, which is hearing \nthe case in Petersburg, postponed its consideration of these motions \nuntil June 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trial in Penza began later than the \ntrial in Petersburg. During the second hearing in Penza, on May 15, \nafter the indictment was read aloud, the defense moved to send the case \nback to the prosecutor\u2019s office for further investigation. It argued the\n case had been carelessly patched together, and some of the evidence had\n been obtained under pain of torture. It was nearly impossible to mount a\n coherent defense against such an \u201cabsurd, vague, and inconsistent\u201d \nindictment, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutor Sergei Semerenko argued the \ntrial should proceed, although he refused to rule out the possibility \nthe indictment would ultimately be withdrawn and resubmitted on less \nserious charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judges reacted to this turn of event \nunexpectedly. They withdrew to chambers and never returned to the \ncourtroom. A court clerk eventually told the lawyers, waiting for a \nruling on their motion, the hearing was adjourned, after which armed \nguards led the defendants away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day it transpired the trial would resume on May 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Penza trial, Dmitry Pchelintsev \nand Ilya Shakursky have been charged with running the Network terrorist \ncommunity. They face twenty years in prison if convicted. Arman \nSagynbayev, Vasily Kuksov, Andrei Chernov, Mikhail Kulkov, and Maxim \nIvankin have been charged with involvement in the alleged community. \nThey face ten years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of the defendants have also been indicted on other charges, including weapons possession and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Petersburg, Viktor Filinkov and Yuli \nBoyarshinov also face charges of involvement in the alleged community. \nBoyarshinov has also been charged with possession of gunpowder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filinkov has claimed he was tortured and \ndenies his guilt. Boyarshinov has complained of torture-like conditions \nin remand prison but has confessed his guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subject of torture also came during \nwhen a witness in the trial, Igor Shishkin, was questioned. Mr. Shishkin\n has already been convicted on charges of involvement with the alleged \nNetwork as part of a plea agreement with investigators. Members of the \nPetersburg Public Monitoring Commission found the most serious injuries \non his body after he was initially detained and questioned by the FSB in\n January 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Mr. Shishkin was asked whether \nunacceptably violent methods had been used on him and whether had \ntestified voluntarily, he smiled and replied, \u201cThe military investigator\n carried out a brilliant investigation: nothing of the sort was found.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Moscow Military District Court \nfinished its examination of the evidence in Petersburg on May 17 after \nholding a video conference with witnesses in Penza, including the \ndefendants on trial there. All the witnesses testified they had not seen\n Viktor Filinkov at training sessions in the woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Mr. Pchelinitsev and Mr. \nSagynbayev testified they had not been questioned about the Petersburg \ncase. The transcript of this interrogation had been copied from \ntestimony they gave to FSB investigator Valery Tokarev in Penza while \nthey were tortured. They later withdrew their testimony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Filinkov, who worked as a programmer \nbefore his arrest, also claimed investigators had falsely interpreted \nphysical evidence seized during searches and reached the wrong \nconclusions during their investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, he claimed he had not \n\u201czigzagged\u201d around Petersburg on the day before his arrest before \ndiscarding the hard drives FSB field agents later found in a trash bin. \nThe images and photos on the drives, which had been entered into \nevidence, were of the kind one would find in the possession of any punk.\n They had been produced by his wife Alexandra Askyonova as a teenager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Aksyonova was granted political asylum in Finland last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Filinkov made a point of noting that \nPetersburg field officer Konstantin Bondarev, who had compiled the case \nfile on him, should be charged with torture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, the court agreed to summon \nMr. Tokarev and Mr. Bondarev to the witness stand, but so far they have \nfailed to appear at the hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key evidence of the alleged anarchist\n community\u2019s terrorist inclinations are two documents, seized from two \nof the Penza defendants: the so-called Code, which outlines the \nNetwork\u2019s alleged goals and organizational structure, and the minutes of\n an interregional \u201ccongress\u201d held in a Petersburg flat in 2017, \nfeaturing responses from the movement\u2019s alleged cells to socio-political\n issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FSB has claimed the cells were armed units. The minutes contain neither the names nor the pseudonyms of the respondents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Vladimir Putin discussed the Network\n case with the Presidential Human Rights Council, he referred to a \nreport drafted for him; the report claimed that \u201cfounding and \nprogrammatic documents had been seized from the terrorist community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the defendants and witnesses \nhave denied the existence of the documents, claiming they only held \ndiscussions during their meetings but did not ratify or sign documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Shishkin, who made a plea agreement with investigators, corroborated this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutor Ekaterina Kachurina asked him, \u201cWhy did you become interested in anarchist ideology?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd why did you become a prosecutor?\u201d he replied, explaining anarchism was interesting to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Pchelintsev said there had been no \u201ccongress,\u201d only \u201ca seminar by consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitaly Cherkasov, Mr. Filinikov\u2019s defense\n attorney, said in court there was every reason to believe \u201can unlimited\n number of Petersburg and Penza FSB officials had illegal access over a \nlengthy period of time\u201d to the hard drive and laptop on which the files \ncontaining the \u201cCode\u201d and the \u201cMinutes\u201d had, allegedly, been discovered,\n due to improprieties in the secure storage and unsealing of the \nphysical evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Boyarshinov\u2019s assistant defense \nattorney, Olga Krivonos, moved to have the court declare the documents \ninadmissible as evidence, along with the FSB\u2019s linguistic forensic \ninvestigation, which concluded the \u201cCode\u201d was a \u201cset of instructions \noutlining the basic organizational principles of a network of combat \nunits capable of resisting the current powers that be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court has adjourned until June 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by the Russian Reader.<\/em> You can read more about the Network case and stories related to the case here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Petersburg Network Trial Defendants Viktor Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinov. Photo by Alexander Koryakov. Courtesy of Kommersant Prosecution Tries to Pin \u201cCode\u201d on Network Defendants Anna Pushkarskaya Kommersant May 21, 2019 The Volga District Military Court rejected the defense\u2019s motion to send the Penza segment of the so-called Network case back to prosecutors. The prosecution has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3585"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3591,"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3585\/revisions\/3591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rupression.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}