On July 3, 2013, while sitting in the “defendant’s dock” at the Leninsky District Court in the city of Kirov, I was writing—right in the middle of the hearing—a post calling on the residents of Yaroslavl to come out to a rally in defense of the newly arrested mayor, Urlashov.
I have not changed my mind, and I can repeat it. Urlashov was arrested and today was sentenced to 12.5 years in a case fabricated against him because:
Urlashov crushed the United Russia candidate in the election.
He held a rally he explicitly called “Against Crooks and Thieves,” bringing together A Just Russia, the Communist Party, and Civic Platform.
At that rally, he announced his intention to run for governor.
And that is why he was arrested literally three days after the rally.
After the arrest, and while the investigation was underway, we heard a lot about irrefutable wiretaps, airtight surveillance footage, shocking videos, and killer evidence.
None of that existed. There was no killer evidence. The few wiretaps that did exist actually supported Urlashov. The entire case was built on the testimony of a pair of United Russia deputies who owned utility businesses.
- He said to pay 14 million rubles, and I took the money to the agreed location.
And there is nothing else there. By that logic, anyone can be imprisoned. In fact, the “Kirovles case” which I won at the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) was built in much the same way: a single witness “confessing” under a special plea procedure to something that never happened.
And we do have one irrefutable piece of evidence: the entire leadership of the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for Economic Security—the body that detained Urlashov—was itself later arrested precisely for fabricating similar bribery cases.
So, freedom for Urlashov—and it is the investigators, prosecutors, and judge who should themselves be put on trial.