There is one very important point about Aleksanyan’s case: like in all criminal cases with complicated political context the decisions there are taken not by ordinary judges, and the accusations are made not by ordinary prosecutors.

A group of “special” judges and prosecutors has been formed during presidential term of Vladimir Putin. Those people are commissioned to deal with most loud cases of political importance. The Vasily Aleksanyan’s case is no exception. The last court proceeding, held on 5 March, was participated by the “masters of justice” who have had a number of “successful” public and political trials.

Evgeny Naidenov is a federal judge at the moment, but a few years ago he used to work as investigator in the Prosecutor General’s office. His loud debut as a state prosecutor happened in 2004 during the proceedings on the case of the Russian scholar Igor Sutyagin in Moscow City Court. Naidenov managed to insist on dismissal of the first jury and replacement of the judge. Besides, the very first day of that proceeding was featured with a scandal resulting in a break of reading. The break was announced after the defense made a protest about the actions by the prosecutor. The lawyers did not agree with the way the prosecutor Naidenov stated the points of the accusations Mr. Sutyagin was charged with. According to the barristers, the prosecutor went beyond the limits of the reading and acquainted the jury with the circumstances of meeting of Mr. Sutyagin with some foreign citizens, which was not imputed as his guilt.     

OUTCOME: The scholar Sutyagin was sentenced for 15 years for espionage in favor of the USA, and now he has been serving his term in a maximum security prison camp. The civil rights advocate community has recognized him to be a political prisoner. 

A year after Sutyagin’s case, Mr. Naidenov acted as the state prosecutor in the proceeding on the case of physicist Valentin Danilov. In 2001 Mr. Danilov was accused of espionage in favor of China. In 2003 the jury acquitted Danilov. Naidenov supported the appeal by the prosecution to the Supreme Court, stating that the defense party had made a pressure on the jury.    

OUTCOME: 9 June 2004 the Supreme Court of Russia cancelled the verdict of not guilty.  

Prosecutor Evgeny Naidenov expressed his satisfaction, “I consider the court’s decision to be lawful and well grounded. The Supreme Court has confirmed the arguments given in the appeal saying that the initial verdict was done with significant procedural defect in process.” In December that year Danilov got sentenced to 14 years of maximum security penal colony.

Now about the trial on the case of Alexei Pichugin, chief of security a YUKOS. 6 August 2007 the Moscow City Court delivered a verdict of guilty on three counts of murder and four attempts and sentenced him to life. Evgeny Naidenov in person managed to insist on 20 years out of that life term. He looked very content with the first verdict delivered, “The verdict is that of guilty. I believe that the jury has examined the case correctly. Now we shall be solving a question of classification the crimes charged to Mr. Pichugin and Mr. Peshkun, and the question of punishment for them.” 

OUTCOME: At the beginning of March 2008 Alexei Pichugin went to serve his sentence to the special penal colony.  

Evgeny Naidenov went high on the career ladder. At the time being, having changed for judge’s gown, he refuses releasing of the terminally ill Vasily Aleksanyan. 5 March the Panel of Appeal of the Moscow court chaired by Evgeny Naidenov dismissed the petition for changing the restriction for Mr. Aleksanyan.    

Now the story comes about Nikolai Vlasov, who is the state prosecutor on Vasily Aleksanyan’s case. 5 March the court agreed to the arguments by Mr. Vlasov that “grounds for keeping Mr. Aleksanyan in custody have not changed”, as he might escape from the investigation and make a pressure on the witnesses. 

One of the past “merits” of Mr. Vlasov is as to follow: at that time being an ordinary councilor of justice he managed the sentence to be decided on the case of Svetlana Bakhmina, deputy chief of the legal division of YUKOS. During the debate on that proceeding Vlasov mentioned that that was “just one of the YUKOS cases – not the first and not the last one”.     

Vlasov required Mrs. Bakhmina to be sentenced for 9 years of standard security colony.  

OUTCOME: In April 2006 Mrs. Bakhmina was sentenced for 7 years for embezzlement and tax avoidance. In September the Moscow Court reduced her penalty for half a year.   

Even considering that Mrs. Bakhmina who has two under-aged children, Mr. Vlasov still insisted the punishment be as severe as possible. After the verdict was read he stated that “the court has delivered the lawful decision” and managed to cope with a difficult case. The experts from the juridical community assure that the Bakhmina’s case was an exampling one in terms of ridiculousness of the accusations presented and poorness of the evidence proved.

In the mean time

Wednesday the Court of Moscow set about consideration on the merits of the case of Leonid Nevzlin, the largest stockholder of YUKOS. Before the trial began, the lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov had asked for a two-month postponement as he had acquainted only with 13 out of 84 volumes of the case materials during 2 weeks he was allowed. The prosecutor Alexander Kublyakov and the three grieved persons asked the court not to allow extra time to the lawyer as, in the state prosecutor’s opinion, the lawyer just wanted to delay the trial. The judge Valery Novikov supported the attitude by the prosecution and dismissed the application.