Trial on riots in Manege Square is politically motivated, defendants assert

On September 7, the Tver District Court of Moscow held the first session on the merits on the criminal case on the riots in Manege Square in last December. The session was held in the open mode and in the presence of journalists and numerous supporters of "The Other Russia" Party.

Even before the trial, the journalists managed to talk to the defendants. Ruslan Khubaev stated that "this is a political process and everything is clear."

"That clash with OMON (riot police) was within the violence against us. I believe that the prisoners' dock should keep the OMON officers. This is a provocation," said Khubaev out of the "cell".

In total, 28 people (and most of them - the police officers) were pronounced to be affected in the case, and five of the victims attended the courtroom. The case is considered by the panel of three judges. Prosecutor Alexei Smirnov appointed the public prosecutor.

In the beginning of the proceedings, the court identified the defendants, all five of them had been previously convicted.

Immediately thereafter, defendant Khubaev challenged Judge Alisov in connection with the fact that Judge refused defendant's lawyer Evgeny Arkhipov to become familiar with the video records from the surveillance cameras installed at Manege Square, which were attached to the case. Khubaev treated that violation of his right to defence. The second reason that he mentioned was the Judge's refusal to allow Khubaev's civil wife and son to visit the defendant. According to Khubaev, the third argument is that on August 25, 2010, during the preliminary session, Judge Alisov announced the ruling in the form confusing for him, namely, in a low voice, although, earlier Khubaev spoke of his hearing problems.

Besides, the defendant pointed at some other arguments, from which he also concluded on Judge's prejudice against him personally. Then, Khubaev also challenged Judge Kovalevskaya for prejudice against him, since last year Judge Kovalevskaya judged one of the participants of the "Strategy 31".

Then, Khubaev challenged the third judges of the panel - Judge Krivoruchko. Khubaev motivated this challenge by the fact that "the international community suspects Judge of involvement in the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky, since Judge's name was listed in the so-called "Magnitsky's list" which was published by the media.

Defendants Unchuk, Berezyuk, Kozevin, and Panin, and victims Afanasiev, Gromov, Navalsky, and Starodumov, who were present in the courtroom, left the decision to the discretion of the court. Defence lawyers Agranovsky, Orlov, Nikitin, and Solomakhin also provided judges to decide, with the exception of Evgeniy Arkhipov, Ruslan Khubaev's lawyer, who supported his client. The prosecutor objected to the challenge of the entire judge panel and called the arguments presented to be circumstantial.

When Judges went to the deliberation room to make a decision, in the courtroom the defendants actively communicated with their friends, activists of the "The Other Russia", and received reprimand from the bailiffs. Similar warnings were addressed to the people present in the courtroom. Several of them were removed from the courtroom.

On their return to the courtroom, Judges pronounced their dismissal of all challenges claimed as unjustified and inadequate to the Code of Criminal Procedure.

After that, Evgeniy Arkhipov, Khubaev's lawyer, challenged Public Prosecutor Alexei Smirnov, justifying it by the fact that another prosecutor participated at the preliminary hearing. According to Evgeny Arkhipov, in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure, he has reason to believe that the prosecutor was pressured. Besides, he wondered why the lawyers had not been explained the reason for the public prosecutor's replacement and called this fact a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The defendants, victims, lawyers and public prosecutor left the decision to the discretion of the court, except Khubaev who supported his defender. Motion on challenging the prosecutor was dismissed.

Judge announced to the people present that the next session on the case would be held on September 15.

After the session, the defence lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the witnesses' testimonies, which were listened to at the courtroom, confirmed that the crowd of people was uncontrollable. According to him, it is absolutely unclear how five people could organize such an action, involving, according to some information, 15,000 persons.