New retaliatory punishment is requested for lawyer Alexei Gorinov, who condemned Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine

Stop the killings, end the war – Gorinova’s message from her ‘cage’ in the courtroom Photo Darya Kornilova

A new lightning case against the 63-year-old Alexei Gorinov It ends with a likely new sentence for the first Russian to be imprisoned on a new charge signed into law on March 4, 2022, to silence protests against Russia’s war against Ukraine. Prosecutor on 28 November requested Gorinov was given an additional prison sentence of 3.5 years on the bizarre charge of ‘legitimizing terrorism’, based on comments he allegedly made to his cellmates about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

The new sentence will be handed down on November 29, after another long sentence passed Against 64-year-old lawyer Dmitry Talantov. He has also been detained since 28 June 2022 on charges of ‘military fraud’ (new Article 207.3 of the Russian criminal code) and ‘inciting hostility due to various Facebook posts condemning Russian atrocities in Mariupol, Bucha and other Ukrainian cities’. The ‘judge’ sentenced the person who told the truth to 7 years in prison on November 28 Denis Melelyagin From the Zavylovsk regional court in Udmurtia.

Talantov, who represented journalist and political prisoner Ivan Safronov, had been detained for just over a week, and on July 8, 2022, Gorinov received the first sentence under article 207.3 for his remarks about Russia killing and orphaning Ukrainian children.

Alexei Gorinov (b. 28.06.1961) is also a lawyer by profession, but he has been detained since April 26, 2022, for the words he said in his capacity as a deputy of the Krasnoselsky Regional Council in Moscow on March 15, 21 days after Russia. Ten days after he launched his large-scale invasion of Ukraine, four new charges were added to criminal and administrative codes to silence protests. At a time when Russia was killing Ukrainian children every day, Gorinov’s rejection of a children’s competition offer fell under various subsections of the newly adopted Article 207.3. § 2 (“Knowingly disseminating false information to the public regarding the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation by a group of people using their official positions motivated by political hatred”).

There was nothing wrong with Gorinov’s comments, which were in any case an expression of his own opinion. This did not prevent him from becoming the victim of Russia’s first show trial under the new charges and being convicted by the ‘judge’. Olga Mendeleyeva From the Meshchansky District Court to a sentence of seven years in a medium-security prison colony. The appeal against this sentence was rejected on September 19 of the same year, and the court decided to postpone the sentence for only one month.

In October 2023, it was revealed that authorities had filed a new charge against Gorinov, accusing him of “publicly legitimizing terrorism”. Here again, the accusation essentially contradicts the official narrative of the Russian state; because the alleged comments were about Ukraine’s completely legitimate explosion on Russia’s illegal Crimean bridge and the Azov Regiment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which Russia declared a ‘terrorist organization’ without any justification. .

This is not the first time Russia has used comments he allegedly made to his cellmates to increase sentences for political prisoners. The same trick was used in November 2023 to add a few more years to the sentence given to the Ukrainian civil activist. Oleh PrykhodkoHe was imprisoned for opposing Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

Gorinov is represented by Alyona Savelieva, who points out the flaws in the accusations against her client. The charge of ‘legitimizing terrorism’ indicates a level of publicity that is completely absent in this case. Gorinov was imprisoned and there are rumors that only two of his cellmates even made the alleged comments.

Such punishments set a very dangerous precedent, as Russia can easily produce such ‘testimony’ from prisoners held in Russian captivity and subject to Russian pressure or blackmail.

There are apparently statements from four so-called ‘witnesses’, but these four people were never in the same cell as him.

Gorinov stated in court that he did not understand exactly what he was accused of and said that he had nothing to do with terrorism. ““The case in question is part of a single process of persecuting citizens who express their stance on the war between neighboring countries that has been going on for the last three years.”

The sentence is expected to be handed down by ‘judge’ Vladimirov from the Second Western District Military Court on November 29.