Alexander Cherkasov’s Talk

ALEXANDER CHERKASOV: This is not the first time the subject of political prisoners has become popular, or even fashionable, in our country. This was already the case in the mid ‘60s. For some reason, many thought that after the Twentieth Party Conference under Khrushchev everyone had been freed, and then Sinyavsky and Daniel were convicted – where would they be sent? It turned out that they had been sent to those places where thousands of people were sitting in camps. In special camps for especially dangerous state criminals, as defined by the state itself. These were the most diverse people possible. Thousands convicted for speaking out, and thousands convicted for guerrilla activities in the Baltic states and Western Ukraine. And thousands of convicted war criminals.

Prisoners of conscience then had Articles 70 and 190 of the Criminal Code. Internally, the state admitted to using criminal repression for political reasons, as stated in a letter from Andropov to the Politburo in December 1975; a means of protecting the very foundations of the existing system. But in the eyes of all outside observers, these were criminals. The presence of political prisoners in the USSR was officially denied. Why? As Sergey Davidis correctly pointed out, the use of criminal repression for resolving political problems is a verdict on the authorities.

I must however note, that the list of the political prisoners put forward as such by the opposition, also gives an idea of the opposition itself. Unfortunately, it mixes several different problems.

Unlike the previous speaker, who spoke strictly within the framework of the topic, I will now address an adjoining theme. The issue of detention conditions. This issue is not related to questions of guilt and legality or unlawfulness of the judgement. Detention conditions must not amount to torture. Yes, a life in prison in modern Russia is a slow murder, but this is an adjoining theme. It is though appropriate to our topic and this is why. Detention conditions and prison facilities themselves are used to put pressure on people, so as to extract confessions from them for the fabrication of cases. To prevent this, a reform of the penitentiary system was initiated, separating the structures of the Federal Penitentiary Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs. In the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a division was made between police working for public security and operational structures. All the same, this system for fabricated cases continues to operate. This is what concerns reforms of the penitentiary system and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, rather than our topic.

The second theme concerns innocent or unfairly judged convicts, regardless of the articles’ relevance. Tell me, are any of our cases ever reviewed in compliance with all the regulations of the Criminal Procedure Code? In Soviet times, the theft of two metres of plinth was resolved by a beating of the suspect in the police department. In the dissident camps, and this was written about on more than one occasion, among the “criminals” there were many who had been unjustly convicted. “The rape of an active pioneer” as an aggravating circumstance, how does that sound? All the same, this still relates to the topic of reform of the judicial system.

I will limit today’s discussion to the fabrication of criminal cases on political grounds. The most important element here is the evidence of there being a political order. We must prove through a set of objective circumstances a certain subjective circumstance. The Soviet government was in this sense a little more honest, because concerning the sanction of a conviction of three people in St. Pete [Leningrad] under common criminal articles in 1981, the KGB addressed the Central Committee and there was a document for this. How can we, amidst the vast set of cases that we are now examining, prove the existence of such a political order? As well as objective circumstances. Was there a fabrication? Was there a selective approach? Had there been a serious breach of procedural regulations? What can help us understand all of this?

For example, the last speaker said that in the Arakcheyev case two successive rulings by the jurors had been revoked. Wonderful. In the case of Ulman in Rostov, the jurors’ rulings had also been revoked. Ulman had been caught on the crime scene. He did not even deny his involvement in the murder, unlike Arakcheyev, who during the investigation admitted to his involvement only to then deny it. Incidentally Nikita Tikhonov, who was mentioned here, had also at the very beginning admitted to murder. Not only did he confess to a layer suggested by the prosecution, also confessing for some time to his new lawyer. The objectivity of the circumstances of the crime in these cases remains under a huge question mark.

In the majority of cases against people suggested to us as political prisoners, we have a range of evidence from only one side. From the defence, if they so wish. Yes, at first sight this appears to be a large and very convincing volume of material. If the full range of materials from the defences of Ulman or Budanov were available to us, we would have felt crushed under the abundance of arguments.

Not all of the lawyers’ positions in affairs of this kind seem absolutely valid to me. Tikhonov and Khasis’ lawyers repeat the same thing time after time, although many of their conclusions were refuted during the trial, but it appears as if the public is convinced. The positions of victims’ lawyers, in such cases where there are charges of murder and violent crimes against the person, seem more appropriate to me. We must protect not only those unfairly convicted, but at the same time the interests of society, so that the offender was indeed convicted. Not all of the defence’s arguments should be readily accepted and immediately interpreted as doubts in the accused's favour.

What is evidence substantiated by case materials? It cannot be absolute. It is relative, but only within the frames of reasonable doubt. Serving this purpose, a probabilistic approach of which Sergey Davidis spoke seems very strange to me. What the hell is a probabilistic approach?! Excuse me, but we are trying to protect people charged with violent crimes, not only in those cases where their innocence lies beyond reasonable doubt, but for the most part in those cases when we are absolutely certain of their innocence, their non-involvement in these crimes.

Even in the Soviet dissident movement, there was not a tradition of absolute doubt in the actions of the state. Sergey Adamovich [Kovalev] may argue with me today, but one may recall the bombings on the Moscow metro in 1977. The dissidents were immediately accused, and in return the dissidents blamed the KGB for the explosions. A group of Armenians were arrested in connection to the bombings. A series of samizdat [self-published] articles were released in defence of the convicted Armenians. However, in a report about the trail in the Chronicle of Current Affairs, this point was missed on the Armenians; it said that innocent people had been convicted. Then in the Soviet Union, it was possible to receive a sufficient range of materials from a closed session of the Supreme Court (!) to understand that: yes, despite the procedural flaws in the investigation and trial, those people who had detonated self-made explosions in the metro were convicted. A position of absolute doubt in a state we do not like that, this does not seem right to me. As in the cases of Arakcheyev and Tikhonov-Khasis, it is absolutely necessary to work with the full range of evidence, and not just with those materials we are consistently offered.

And lastly. Before the fourth of February and the rally at which a list of political prisoners was meant to be handed over to the presidential administration, there were attempts to add another 58 people. One well-known television presenter tried to receive a letter from prisoners in a Nalchik prison, convicted for the attack on the city in 2005, in which they would have demanded their recognition as political prisoners and welcomed the Moscow rallies. Those in Nalchik, for one reason or another, did not want to sign this letter. Thank God this was not heard of. I will finish my speech on this note: let us not let this important topic become a tool of current-day politics.

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