Today, the second hearing in Navalny’s case took place. Here’s the most important of what happened there:
The hearing began an hour late, and some journalists were not allowed into the penal colony, allegedly because there was no room. A week earlier, there had been no such problems. Apparently, the court decided the previous hearing had been a little too “open” and chose to correct that.
Navalny’s lawyer, Yevgeny Salomatov, who joined the defense at this hearing, asked for time to review the case materials — and the judge generously gave him one hour. The case file consists of 30 volumes. That means he had two minutes per volume. On top of that, they were not allowed to photograph the documents for a long time, because electronic devices are prohibited in the colony. In practice, this means Navalny is being deprived of his right to a defense: lawyers cannot do their job if they are forbidden from photographing the materials, recording the hearings, or even using the laptops where all the court documents are stored.
Alexei’s lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, filed a motion asking that the defense be allowed to use electronic devices and that Navalny himself be permitted to change from prison uniform into civilian clothes. The judge, of course, refused again.
After that, the questioning of the prosecution’s witnesses began. There were two of them. Almost the entire day was taken up by the testimony of the first, Vitaly Serukanov.
He calls himself a “former ACF lawyer,” but he lies even about small things — he never worked at ACF. That did not stop him, however, from solemnly explaining how work at the Foundation was supposedly organized. He was so eager to share his “knowledge” that he jumped up to the stand and began testifying before anyone had even asked him a question. Presumably, he was afraid he might forget his lines.
That eagerness is easy to explain — it has to do with Serukanov’s current job. He works for the state propaganda channel Russia Today. Well, “works” may be too strong a word. In reality, Serukanov has an easy but disgraceful job: he invents “exposés” about Navalny, posts them on his Telegram channel, and gets paid from the state budget for it.
In court, Serukanov refused to disclose his place of work and salary, claiming that it had nothing to do with the case. In fact, it has everything to do with it: he is officially paid 754,000 rubles a month for smearing people. We published an investigation about this.
So one of the prosecution’s main “experts” on ACF turned out to be a man who was never employed by the Foundation, never had a permanent workplace there, knew nothing about its internal operations, and was not acquainted with a single one of the alleged “victims.” But he is on the Kremlin’s payroll and ready to lie under oath however he is told to.
Almost all of Serukanov’s questioning in court amounted to reading out his previous statements. According to them, for example, Navalny deliberately organized unauthorized rallies in order to profit from those detained — but at the same time did not organize any rallies at all, because they existed only on Twitter and not in real life.
Whenever Navalny asked him to explain these contradictions, Serukanov took offense and complained to the judge that Alexei was confusing him.
The prosecutor demanded that Navalny’s questions be disallowed, and the judge obediently disallowed them. I think they would gladly reduce the entire trial to the reading of the verdict.
And now for the good news. In the beautiful Russia of the future (a phrase used by Navalny’s supporters to describe a democratic future Russia), Vitaly Serukanov would face up to five years in prison for perjury. Because that is exactly what we watched all day: fully aware that he was not telling the truth, Serukanov kept lying under oath.
The second prosecution witness was Fyodor Gorozhanko. He really is a former ACF employee who, after being fired, stole and sold the supporters’ database. Evidently, the Investigative Committee expected that, like Serukanov, he would immediately declare Alexei guilty — but Gorozhanko ruined all their plans.
He said that he wanted to testify for the defense and maintained that Navalny had never engaged in any unlawful activity. He also stated in detail under oath that investigators had pressured him while he was giving testimony, threatened him, and demanded that he answer using the exact wording of the charges.
ACF is filing a complaint with the Investigative Committee over an investigator’s coercion of witness Gorozhanko into giving knowingly false testimony.
Gorozhanko himself called the trial absurd and said that there had been no instances of theft at ACF, and that he does not consider the Foundation’s activities extremist. He wants nothing to do with those trying to accuse Navalny.
So today’s prosecution witnesses were as follows: a corrupt propagandist who never worked at ACF, and a man who said Navalny was innocent. What can one say — the Investigative Committee really outdid itself today.
The next hearing is on February 22 at 10:00 a.m. The questioning of the prosecution’s witnesses will continue there.