It works very simply: either a landing party of former security officials and civil servants is dropped into the board, who, if necessary, show loyalty (one can recall the outplayed verdict in the case of Warrant Officer Smirnov), or such “mines” are laid from previously convicted passengers, as in the Kulakov case. And in the regions, in general, there are whole worked out connections.
A striking example of the latter scheme is the high-profile case of the murder by Ivanovo resident Anatoly Grudistov of his acquaintance’s offender near a nightclub in 2019. At first, the jury found him guilty of murder by negligence (1.5 year sentence, he was released for time served), but then on the initiative of the prosecutor’s office (during the consideration of the case, the right of the victim, the father of Fazil Balaev, was allegedly violated: in the minutes of the court hearings there was no written translation into Azerbaijani language of the lawyer’s questions asked to the jury) the verdict was overturned. The second panel issued a guilty verdict and Grudistov was sentenced to 8 years.
But then some very interesting details emerged.
The defense of the convicted person recently filed a cassation appeal, after which the judge who handed down the sentence was hastily retired. A lawyer’s investigation showed that 7 out of 8 people’s judges concealed the fact that they knew each other – they participated in the consideration of criminal cases in the same court, with the same presiding judge, with the same composition of state prosecutors.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
