Before the decision was announced, the politician was made several comments and the microphone was turned off.
Judging by the schedule posted on the door of the courtroom, Judge Olga Filimonova planned to devote 5 minutes to considering the appeal in the case of insulting government officials.
Unable to meet such a short deadline, the judge needed a more realistic half hour…
None of the federal media journalists with equipment was allowed into the conference room. The judge prohibited photo and video filming of the process.
Behind closed doors, for an unknown reason, the court did not provide the opportunity to submit any petition to lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin. Alexander Shestun himself demanded (via video conferencing – VKS) that the court familiarize itself with the materials.
He recalled that he twice asked to be provided with information, sending written requests from the pre-trial detention centers in Kashira and Kaluga. This right was never granted to him. The judge ignored the legal requirements and immediately began to consider the case.
During the debate, prosecutor Bastrykina spoke out in favor of upholding the verdict of the Domodedovo court (six months in prison and a fine of 250 thousand rubles).
The lawyer insisted that during the Domodedovo trial, linguistic experts were deprived of accreditation for their activities and analyzed Shestun’s words, taking them out of context. The defense’s arguments regarding the threats were not refuted. “It is impossible to recognize as legal a verdict in a case in which false information is present,” the lawyer added.
Alexander Shestun himself, who is now in Kaluga, recalled that he was recognized as a political prisoner, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted resolution 2446 in the summer calling on the Russian authorities to release him, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) even before that declared the arrest illegal.
The political prisoner reminded the court of the public criticism he subjected to high-ranking officials in 2018 and that immediately after that a criminal case was opened against him, and his family was deprived of property and their only home.
Alexander also spoke about freedom of speech in Russia: more precisely, about the violation of this right. When it came to the situation around the SVO in Ukraine and the freedom to call a spade a spade, the judge turned off the microphone completely.
When Shestun’s microphone was turned on, he continued to talk on a topic that the court considered irrelevant to the case. “Turn your robes into burqas to hide from the people’s anger,” was the last thing that sounded from the speakers.
After a short break, Judge Filimonova issued a verdict: “The verdict of the Domodedovo court is left unchanged, the appeal is not satisfied.”
“ВЧК ОГПУ”