Alexander Lavut

OLEG ORLOV: The last person to speak said he only needed two minutes. Alexander Pavlovich Lavut is a prisoner of conscience from Soviet times. Then we will directly proceed to our conclusions, and our first speakers will have five minutes each.

ALEXANDER LAVUT: It’s clear that everyone is already tired. I am not going to take on a wide range of questions, just two.

First of all, I was alarmed at first by Sergey Davidis’s statement, then someone else’s, one or two who said: “We’ll save the details for later, the most important thing now is not to forget to include anyone. Let the list be even bigger, we will later work it out.” I think this is a very dangerous position. This is the position of a chess player, devising a fantastic game plan which which will lead to his opponent’s checkmate within three or four moves, without considering that another chess player is taking part.

Our opponents and persecutors will not hesitate to find a reason to “take the chess board and hit someone by the head” and tell everyone “This is who they've put there.” We will then make excuses like “yes, we underestimated it all...” Be very careful with the list! Someone might accuse me of self-praise, but that is how the Chronicle operated. Doubts were aired in the defendant's favour, the defendant was the Soviet government.

There were also sloppy mistakes. I remember an anecdotal one in which Sanya [Alexander] Daniel was involved. The first basic list of political prisoners published in Chronicle contained short summaries of why they were imprisoned. In regards to one person whose name I do not remember, although I do remember it was a Caucasian surname, Chronicle wrote: “He was the head of a collective farm.” Within two issues a correction was made: “He hadn’t been the ‘head of a collective farm, but killed the head of a collective farm’”

AUDIENCE: It’s not clear what’s worse!

ALEXANDER LAVUT: The second thing I would like to draw my attention to, and very briefly comment upon, is the idea many have projected concerning a council of some sorts. I think this needs to be thought over another ten times. We have two examples. One very basic one: the Strasbourg court, where cases lie around for years and nothing happens. The second example: the expertise, which [President Dmitriy] Medvedev permitted and even requested in the second Khodorkovsky-Lebedev case. It was organised by the Presidential Council. The expertise was carried out. And so what?

I have two misgivings; that such a council, as was mentioned here, would perhaps be very politicised? There is another real danger. Unfortunately, and with no malicious intent here, it will be very bureaucratic. The procedure of examination will perhaps be comparable with the five-ten years of Strasbourg.

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