The Military Appeals Court reviewed the defense's complaint against the latest sentence of former municipal deputy Alexey Gorinov, leaving it unchanged, reported a correspondent from «Mediazona»** from the courtroom.
In November last year, the 2nd Western District Military Court issued a second sentence to Gorinov, who had already been convicted for spreading military «fakes», under the article for «justifying terrorism» due to conversations with cellmates in a prison hospital. The court sentenced him to three years on the new case but transferred him to a strict regime, thus Gorinov must spend one more year in detention compared to the previous sentence.
Lawyer Katerina Tertukhina stated that the evidence of Gorinov's guilt was obtained as a result of provocation and reminded that operational measures cannot create conditions for committing a crime. The defense noted that in the recording from January 23, it is clearly heard how one of the witnesses receives instructions from a person who introduced himself as a «major».
The defense also pointed out the absence of any information that Gorinov was planning to commit a new crime, meaning there was not even a formal reason for conducting ORM. Thus, FSIN employees deliberately pushed and provoked Gorinov, and the cellmates were specifically selected. This is why the testimonies of key prosecution witnesses significantly differ from the case materials, and one of them could not have been a witness to the conversation attributed to Gorinov, yet they coincide with each other by 90%. The defenders are confident that the witness interrogation protocols were copied from one another.
Moreover, the conversation was not public. «There is no justification of terrorism in Gorinov's words, he expressed his anti-war position», noted the defense.
Gorinov himself in his speech indicated that he never supported either violence or the ideology of nationalism: «I do not adhere to nationalist ideology and do not support it in any form. I consider attributing such views to me an insult. All my life I have spoken out against violence».
Another reason for overturning the sentence, the defense named the fact that the judge of the 2nd Western District Military Court Roman Vladimirov interrupted Gorinov's final word three times, and then simply stood up in the middle of his speech and left to deliver the sentence. Judge Boris Kozhevnikov listened to all the defense's petitions, rejected them, and then, like the first-instance judge, deprived Gorinov of his final word: interrupted and left to make a decision.
* Listed as a «terrorist and extremist».
** Recognized as a «foreign agent» in Russia.
Photo: Alexandra Astakhova/Mediazona