Приговор при свечах / Judgment in candlelight - Владимир Анатольевич Арсентьев

Knyazev was arrested one year after the fire as a suspect in the murder of Barinova and Svetlova under Article 105 Section 2 of the CC RF, that is, in a crime sometimes carrying a death penalty. On the next day, without being provided an attorney to protect his rights and legitimate interests, he first gave the following testimony. As instructed and directly guided by Leskov, he was driving a car in small house suburbs on that evening. Matvey had brought the car and given it to him. Bednyakov, Moiseyev, and a hunter with a grenade launcher got in the car. Knyazev noticed a three-liter jar at Bednyakov’s feet. He drove out to the street and approached a house specified by Leskov. Everyone went towards the house. Bednyakov and Moiseyev picked up sticks on their way and started breaking windows, and then they threw the jars inside. At that moment, Knyazev ran back to the car, seeing Bednyakov throw a burning cloth in the window. When he got in the car, he heard an explosion. Bednyakov immediately sat in the front, Moiseyev and the hunter in the back. Nobody had a grenade launcher. He started the car and took off, took a turn to another street and stopped the car by a house. Bednyakov doused the car interior with gasoline and set the car on fire. Then Knyazev and Bednyakov got in Leskov’s car and left.

The case file lacks any procedural identification of the so-called “hunter” by Knyazev, Bednyakov, or any other persons who had mentioned that man at the interrogations during the pre-trial investigation. Nevertheless, the investigation alleged that the Sergeyev could have been the hunter.

Witness Sergeyev explained in that regard, as he did before, that he indeed was a hunter, but during the autumn of that year, he had been hunting in the taiga of the northern district of the province and staying in the taiga village, so he was not involved in the case in any way.

On the next day, Knyazev was forced to refuse to have a counsel, because, as he said, he was afraid that his testimony would be disclosed. In fact, he had not been provided or offered the services of a lawyer that time, just as before.

The same day at the scene of the incident, Knyazev changed his testimony and claimed that he had stopped the car on the curb next to the house where Bednyakov, Moiseyev, and the hunter had committed their acts. That is indicated in an additional scene inspection report with the involvement of suspect Knyazev. The report specified that the object of investigation was Knyazev’s route in Leskov’s car.

After a week, Knyazev, still being a suspect and deprived of the opportunity to duly exercise his right to defense, changed his testimony again and started saying that the jars contained gasoline. Bednyakov and Moiseyev threw in the windows sticks wrapped with cloth. He saw from the car how the hunter extended the pipe. Knyazev heard the explosion but did not see the shot. After the explosion, the three of them got in the car and told him to drive straight ahead and stop by a fence, where Bednyakov burned down the car. Moiseyev and the hunter left in a car with Klimkin, and Leskov took Knyazev and Bednyakov to another town.

After three more weeks – a month after his arrest – Knyazev, in the same position of a suspect, deluded about his right to defense, changed his testimony again and claimed that Leskov told him to get behind the wheel of the car. They drove to the house not right away but as they were coming back. According to that new story, Knyazev, like Bednyakov and Moiseyev, also took a jar and went to the house. When Bednyakov torched a cloth, Knyazev came back to the car, and there was an explosion.

More than a year after their last interrogation, Knyazev and Bednyakov were assigned the same defense counsel, Shtern, on the same day. Note that the two men had a conflict of interest arising from Bednyakov’s year-old first testimony, a conflict unresolved by the pre-trial investigation. It remained irreconcilable at trial, because defendants Bednyakov and Knyazev refused to explain anything to the court.

Furthermore, even before the judicial proceedings, defendant Bednyakov refused the services of lawyer Shtern, because the counsel defended both him and Knyazev during the pre-trial investigation despite their conflict of interests. Another defense counsel was assigned to Bednyakov by the court because of his financial situation, so the defendant did not personally avail of the services of the lawyer either before the trial or in court.

As the preliminary investigation authorities indicated in the case documents, the suspicion that Knyazev had killed Barinova and Svetlova was not confirmed. As a result, after two and a half years of investigation, he was finally indicted for a different offense. The offense was aiding Bednyakov, Moiseyev, Sergeyev – and other defendants charged with participating in the gang, according to the investigation – in demolishing the house and the car. Knyazev was also charged under Article 222 Section 2 of the CC RF with illegal transport of a grenade launcher as a weapon; the prosecuting attorney dropped that charge at trial and requested an acquittal.

The same day Knyazev in the presence of lawyer Shtern – Bednyakov’s counsel – pleaded fully guilty on the count of aiding the destruction of property and not guilty on the count of transporting a grenade launcher. Again, the defendant changed his testimony, explained that he had not seen the weapon, and told the court that on that day he came to the city of N in Leskov’s car together with Leskov, Bednyakov, and Bukin. At about 1 or 2 o’clock in the night, they arrived to a street area where Bragin brought another car. Knyazev took the wheel. He was joined by Bednyakov, who had two three-liter jars of gasoline, and Moiseyev, who had a similar