Not so long ago, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko said that the terms of detention in …

Not long ago, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko stated that terms of detention in a pre-trial detention center should not exceed one year, even for those who have committed serious crimes against the person. There is no need to even talk about economic charges – Vladimir Putin himself has repeatedly called on the security forces to refrain from placing defendants in cases of economic crimes in pre-trial detention centers. In December, the president spoke out harshly about the practice of “carrying around in shackles” those accused of economic crimes and promised to stop it. Unfortunately, so far all these words are far from reality and are simply indifferent to the Russian Themis. Tomorrow, January 25, the St. Petersburg City Court will once again consider the appeal against the arrest of St. Petersburg businessman Evgeny Yarmosh. Yarmosh, who is involved in a criminal case against the restoration company Meander, and its director Elena Zavadskaya have been wandering around the cells since September 2020. We will not talk in detail about how unsuccessfully “Meander” received a contract for the restoration of the building of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where the “Baltstroy” of the already legendary prisoner Dmitry Mikhalchenko had previously been stolen to smithereens. Yarmosh and Zavadskaya are accused of fraud. Both deny their guilt, and not one of the dozens of witnesses interviewed gave incriminating evidence against them. After all, part of the money under the contract returned to the budget, and the other was spent on maintaining the historical site, which is in disrepair. But now something else is important – for two and a half years now, native Petersburger Yarmosh, a graduate of the famous Makarovka, an exemplary family man and father of two children, as well as single mother Zavadskaya, have been under real arrest. They are led through the corridors of the courts in handcuffs, with their hands clasped behind their backs, and they have to listen to the testimony of witnesses in a cage, like seasoned robbers or murderers. Over and over again, the Krasnogrvardeisky District Court of St. Petersburg seems not to hear the characteristics of the accused. Themis doesn’t care at all that Yarmosh, who regularly went to interrogations for many months before his arrest, not only does not want, but also cannot hide – the businessman’s foreign and Russian passports have expired. It is also not important for the court that “putting pressure on witnesses” who are already giving exculpatory evidence for Yarmosh and Zavadskaya is absurd. The court simply doesn’t give a damn about Matvienko’s opinion and the president’s promises. Well, the appeal does not usually argue with colleagues who work according to well-known rules. Here we see the whole operating principle of the Russian judicial system, which has not changed much since the days of the Gulag. It’s simple: if you don’t admit guilt, you’ll rot in a cell and walk around in handcuffs until you’re sure to get a guilty verdict! And no calls from Putin can yet change this judicial-prosecutorial, primordially domestic, soulless punitive solidarity.
https://ria.ru/20221207/prestupleniya-1837059140.html?ysclid=lda3u44g5w512441013