Приговор при свечах / Judgment in candlelight - Владимир Анатольевич Арсентьев

Defendant Porokhov pleaded not guilty at trial, saying he was not at the scene, did not see Leskov, and was home on the night in question. The testimony above was obtained from him under duress by officers who promised to release him.

Pervushin also claimed his innocence and testified he wasn’t involved in the murder of Petrov. He said he neither asked anything of nor offered anything to Prudon or Bragin, and he also did not introduce Bragin to anyone named Matvey. In January, Pervushin said, he had purchased a car in a state of disrepair from a man named Polyansky to resell it to Pyzhov for spare parts.

Pervushin pleaded not guilty at trial and explained he knew nothing about the grenade launchers and pistols he was accused of carrying. He didn’t know anyone with the last name of Pastukhov. That spring, he said, he was held in a detention center because of a different criminal case, and that summer, he was in the hospital due to a spinal injury he had suffered in a car crash.

Sergeyev claimed his innocence and testified that he worked as a guard for Porokhov, a businessman who had his office in a hotel. He wasn’t present at any of Porokhov’s meetings and saw no weapons. He went away to a village in mid-September and, together with Vlasov and Konev, traveled in the taiga to legally procure furs under a contract. They came out of the taiga in early November of the same year. From that moment until mid-November, Sergeyev remained in the taiga village, living with the Konevs. When he returned to the city, he learned about the destruction of the house; however, he doesn’t know any details.

Sergeyev pleaded not guilty at trial and confirmed the alibi he had presented during the preliminary investigation. He also told the details of his trip to the village in the time period in question.

Moiseyev claimed his innocence and testified he had not previously known Porokhov, Perov, Pervushin, and Sergeyev, but he had met Leskov in the summer of that year. Moiseyev said he didn’t know anything about the killing of Petrov. During the night in question, he was in a different city, in Leskova’s apartment, where he remained for all of the time, helping her with her husband’s funeral – he was buried in a cemetery on the next day. Moiseyev came back only in the evening. He learned about the accident from a newspaper. He was not acquainted with Pyzhov, Yezhov, or Kozhin, and he didn’t know anything about their attempted murder.

At trial, defendant Moiseyev pleaded not guilty and confirmed the alibi he had presented during the preliminary investigation. He also described the details of his trip to another city in the time period in question.

Bragin claimed his innocence and testified that in spring, at Pervushin’s request, he drove Prudon around the city for several days and saw a TT pistol on him, and then he drove Matvey, following a green car. After a month, Prudon blew up the car Bragin used to drive him around. Bragin read in a newspaper that the entrepreneur Petrov was shot to death.

Bragin pleaded not guilty at trial and said that he drove Prudon after hijackable cars. He did not know who the owners or drivers of those cars were. With the same purpose, he drove Matvey around for about two or three days until March 8th, when he traveled to another town and stayed there until March 11th. During that period, he was living with his parents and rebuilding the burnt bathhouse. He doesn’t know any details of Petrov’s murder or who was the perpetrator. He hadn’t told the preliminary investigation that Matvey had killed Petrov, because he didn’t know anything about it. That version had been imposed on him by the ones who interrogated him, but he did not confirm the story.

Defendants Bednyakov and Knyazev pleaded guilty at trial but refused to explain their position, referring to Article 51 of the Constitution. For that reason, the court had no opportunity to hear the defendants’ narratives. Their testimonies during the preliminary investigation will be presented below.

Witness Prudon testified that in mid-February he engaged in car hijacking and drove Bragin around, following Petrov’s car. While he was driving around the city, he saw a TT pistol on Bragin. He understood from the conversations between Porokhov, Pervushin, and Bragin that they wanted to kill Petrov. In early March, Porokhov excluded him from participation in the killing of Petrov. He did not know who committed that act. After the murder, he heard a conversation between Pervushin and Bragin, from which he learned that Pervushin promised Bragin to get someone to hurry with the payment and recommended Bragin to lay low. While talking to Leskov and Pervushin, Prudon understood that Petrov was murdered by Bragin and someone from Leskov’s circle. About a month after the murder, Bragin blew up the car which was used to follow Petrov’s car. A week before the murder, Prudon and Bibikov took from Teterin and Pyzhov a Mercedes, which had been stolen from Petrov and was later taken apart. According to Prudon, in July Pervushin purchased two objects from Pertsev that looked like grenade launchers; their fate is unknown to Prudon. In early November he was in the same prison as Pervushin. He learned from Pervushin that Leskov blew up Yezhov’s house due to a conflict with Pyzhov.

At trial, after the judge read out Prudon’s above testimony to the preliminary investigation, the witness recanted it, saying that he hadn’t provided such evidence. Moreover, Prudon told the court that he had made false statements about Pervushin regarding the grenade launchers, about Bragin regarding the TT pistol, and that he had seen Porokhov at Pervushin’s or heard any of their conversations; the witness also hadn’t taken the Mercedes from Pyzhov and Teterin; he had followed Petrov’s car together with Bragin, but only with the purpose of