06/21/2017 Published in Grani.ru (copy)
Questions for the jury
Today, Judge Zhitnikov announced (so far only for lawyers and spectators) the questions that the jury will have to answer. As required by law, it all starts with whether the fact of Nemtsov’s death as a result of gunshot wounds (and all the known circumstances of the murder) has been reliably established.
The next question is about the guilt of each of the defendants. But each of the questions is crammed together. It sounds something like this: “Is it proven that Dadaev, together with the Gubashevs, Bakhaev, Eskerkhanov and the person who died during the arrest (Shavanov), – then comes a long text almost rewritten from the indictment about how the murder was committed according to the prosecution ( agreed to kill for money, bought weapons, housing and vehicles, secretly followed, shot on the bridge, disappeared) – did all this?
Same for everyone. It is interesting: if the jury finds one of the five innocent (for example, even the lawyers of the victims Prokhorov and Mikhailova spoke about the practical absence of evidence on Bakhaev), then how will they be able to indicate this? Let’s say, according to the item “is it proved that Bakhaev, together with Dadaev, the Gubashevs, etc.” they will answer no. And about Dadaev and the Gubashevs – yes. But the same Anzor Gubashev did it “together with Bakhaev.” So the jury will have to contradict themselves?
Tomorrow the lawyers are to present their views on the issues. I think the dispute will be serious.
Final debate
Прокурор Мария Семененко
Prosecutor Maria Semenenko
The day before there were “remarks” – the last phase of the debate of the parties. The props competition continued. Back in the debate, Dadaev’s lawyer Mark Kaverzin brought an extensive (by Nemtsov’s size) white shirt on a hanger with bullet holes marked with red paint. In response to this, prosecutor Semenenko put up an already voluminous wire mannequin pierced with knitting needles (they indicated the direction of the bullet channels). The lawyer who argued that the last shot was fired from the front lost. On his flat dummy, indeed, the hole from the bullet that hit the side turned out to be in front. On the volume, everything fell into place – the shot was from the side. True, what this gives to each of the parties remained unclear: how exactly the killer shot, how Nemtsov fell, no one explained to us. Although, I think, in the investigative experiment, one could at least try to reproduce all the trajectories.
Semenenko continued to develop a stream of new ideas that we did not encounter during the trial. In the debate, she spoke about the “Plan B” and the division of the criminal group into two parts, about the “technical genius” – communications specialist Bakhaev. New definitions have appeared in the replicas.
1. For Eskerkhanov, who was left alone and detained in an apartment on Veernaya Street, when everyone fled from there, the role of a “key keeper” was found – the keeper of the apartment. In general, the prosecutor’s fantasy in relation to Eskerkhanov worked most vividly: the day before, an explanation was found for his stay in the Ukraine Hotel and in the night bar (which, it would seem, had nothing to do with the murder).
About the recording from Duran-bar, which was not allowed to be viewed, where Eskerkhanov was instead of the alleged Arbat: “There was no point in watching this recording, since the murder itself is not imputed to Eskerkhanov, he does not need an alibi.” Yes, but you accused him yesterday of being in the Arbat bar (where he was not), he “insurance” abandoned nearby after the murder of ZAZ. Where is the logic?
2. It was said about all the defendants that we are dealing with “an organized group of well-trained intelligent people.” This, however, somewhat contradicts the abundance of traces left by them everywhere and the “flare” on dozens of video cameras. Especially high, apparently, is the intellect of the “key keeper” Eskerkhanov, who remained to wait for the investigators on the main “raspberry”.
3. Lawyer Kaverzin was subjected to obstruction, “grossly distorting the data of the investigation before the jury, saying that Dadaev had 2 seconds for six shots.” In fact, the examination says 2.4 seconds. At the same time, Semenenko for some reason continued to stubbornly insist on the original version, according to which Dadaev fired three times, then walked away, turned around, saw Nemtsov rising and fired three more times. All in 2.4 seconds.
A few more phrases of the prosecutor.
“Everything that was said here about customers is just to talk about!”
“Why can’t the driver be the customer? Even if Mukhudinov was Dadaev’s driver, he could still order the murder of Nemtsov.”
“Even if Dadaev didn’t buy ZAZ, couldn’t he have committed the murder?” (despite the fact that the purchase of the car, according to the prosecution, is one of the main evidence of Dadaev’s guilt).
“Allegedly, the court did not allow all the witnesses to be interrogated! Let them bring them themselves, the court will not be able to refuse!” I immediately imagined Vadim Prokhorov making his way through the Chechen mountain paths in order to capture and deliver Ruslan Geremeev to court.
“We did not spend this time in vain – the court considered 38 examinations out of 65 in the case, interrogated 38 witnesses.” Leaving gaping holes in the evidence base.
All this nonsense is, on the one hand, a tradition of domestic justice. On the other hand, there are a lot of objective materials in the case, including those that speak about the involvement in the history of some of the defendants. Even more could have been obtained if the investigation had not stopped work at one moment.
It cannot be said that the defense showed miracles of ingenuity and a consistent position in the process. But I intended to trace the methods of work of the state prosecution, so we will leave the lawyers out of the brackets.