Приговор при свечах / Judgment in candlelight - Владимир Анатольевич Арсентьев

Witness Tikov testified that he dismantled a Mercedes in March at Pervushin’s request. He drove that car to the woods, where it burned down. He doesn’t know whose car that was or where it came from. At about the same time, in Tikov’s presence, Bragin destroyed the car he used to drive around in. Tikov doesn’t know why Bragin did so, who the car owner was, or how Bragin got it.

Witness Pchelintsev testified that last year, in August or September, in the street, Porokhov told him to go behind the hotel, take two pouches from a guy, and hide them at his place. After that conversation, he went behind the hotel, where a guy named Yegor passed him two pouches. Pchelintsev took them and left. It turned out that there were two pistols in the pouches. Pchelintsev hid them in a stash in the basement of a residential house. He often went there and inspected the pistols, “unloading the magazine.” Those were TT pistols with ten rounds in each clip. Primers on three cartridges had dents caused by misfire. Pchelintsev kept one such round along with two undamaged ones. In February, Porokhov told him to pass the two pistols to “his man” on Kamysh Avenue, which he did, handing two pouches with pistols to an unknown person.

It is indicated in the same report, based on Pchelintsev’s account, that Porokhov had been suspicious of him since the beginning of the year, so they didn’t keep in touch.

At his next interrogation, Pchelintsev specified that he got the two TT pistols from Leskov in the summer of the past year and passed them to an unknown person from Pervushin’s “inner circle.”

During another interrogation, Pchelintsev stated that Porokhov had never carried weapons on him.

A record of identification showed that Pchelintsev recognized the TT pistol from Petrov’s murder scene. It was the one he had kept in his house, acquired from Leskov, and passed to a person unknown to the investigation.

Three TT pistol cartridges, which Pchelintsev surrendered voluntarily, were included in the record of seizure in the prosecutor’s office of the city of N.

Ballistics showed that the three cartridges seized from Pchelintsev were 7.62 mm rounds suitable for firing from TT pistols, Mausers, and submachine guns like Shpagin, Degtyaryov, or Sudayev; the dent on the primer of one of the cartridges was caused by a light external tap on the hammer of the gun and a manual drop of the hammer, all while the round was in the barrel chamber. The dent could have been created by the firing pin of the submitted TT pistol issued in 1952.

Meanwhile, it is stated in the investigative section of that report that from the form of the dent on the central part of the primer, one might conclude that it was created by the firing pin of the pistol submitted. However, the pin surface microstructure left little imprint on the primer, so the dent could not be considered as valid for identification.

It follows that the cartridge with the damaged primer, seized from Pchelintsev, was doubtfully inside the TT pistol seized at the scene of Petrov’s murder. As a result, the preliminary investigation found inadmissible the evidence that Porokhov and Pervushin were implicated in the murder of Petrov.

Pchelintsev’s testimony above also does not prove that Porokhov or Pervushin owned or carried any weapons.

The case file contains no testimony from Leskov. Like Pastukhov, he was not interrogated by the court because no one, including the investigation, knew his whereabouts.

Furthermore, victim Petrova testified that on March 7, she drove to the store in Petrov’s Merceder. While she was shopping, the car was stolen. She didn’t know who the offender was.

After 9 p. m. on March 10, Petrov, while opening the gate, was killed by an unknown person in the courtyard of their family home. She was in the house at that moment, heard two shots, and saw from her window that the person made another shot, possibly with a pistol, at the head of Petrov, who was already lying on the ground. Then the person escaped. She still doesn’t know who killed her husband and why.

Petrova confirmed her testimony in court and added that when she told her husband, Petrov, about the car theft, he said it was her fault.

Witness El, Petrova’s sister, testified that on the night of March 10, Petrova called her and told that Petrov had been shot at and that she should come quickly. When El entered the Petrovs’ courtyard, she saw the police and Petrov’s corpse at the driveway gates. Her sister Petrova was inside. Petrova told her the circumstances of the event in the same way as she did in her victim’s testimony. El also knows from her sister the circumstances of the Mercedes theft on March 7.

Witness Zhulev testified that he, living on the same street as the Petrovs, saw a car next to his fence late at night in early February. He could not describe the passengers. The car was following his own car, so he noticed the license plate. Later he found out that the license plate number belonged to Polyansky’s car. The suspicious car stood there until the next morning. Zhulev did not see it until the morning of March 10, when it appeared on his street again. He did not see who was in the car that time either. He learned about the murder of Petrov on the evening of the same day, as he was parking his car in the enclosure and saw a lot of people next to the Petrovs’ house.

Witness Zhulev testified at trial that he didn’t remember such circumstances. However, after the court read out his testimony to the investigation, he confirmed all his statements.

Witnesses Klyarova, Vasilyeva, Glukharyova, and Panina told the court that they did not remember the event. However, they all confirmed the testimonies they had given to the