Moscow April 22, 2013

Summary of the Section

1. coercive dispersion of the peaceful approved event was originally planned by the governmental authorities. Before the conflict, these bodies had prepared for a planned military operation, had informed the personnel to minimize contacts with the participants of the meeting and had introduced a significant number of provokers into the ranks of the demonstrators;

2. unilateral violation of the previously agreed scheme of the organization of the meeting made by the authorities became a technical cause of the complications that occurred when the column was going out from Maly Kamenny Bridge and started the direct confrontation. The organizers of the event have not been informed in advance and could not take anticipatory measures to eliminate the conflict. The organizers couldn’t get in touch with the authorized representatives of the city authorities and law enforcement agencies in the square at the moment when the conflict had arisen so that it was impossible to resolve the conflict promptly. All the attempts of the protesters, the Human Rights Commissioner of Russia Vladimir Lukin, the deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation to improve the situation have been ignored;

3. the breakthrough occurred in the first line of the cordon resulted from inadequate inaction of the authorities in this situation, hustle caused by cordon location that narrowed the passage, the absence of proper means for mass notification of the citizens. To a large extent this breakthrough is due to the activity of provocateurs deliberately introduced into the ranks of the demonstrators. Repeated efforts of the organizers to prevent the breakthrough were unavailing in that situation.

4. In the course of the arisen confrontation all the actions of the police officers and the OMON soldiers were notable for inadequate use of force against unarmed civilians. There has been illegal use of special weapons, blocking of exit from the zone of the meeting (as well as for the elderly, women, people with children), failure to render medical assistance to victims in time; provoking of panic fraught with mass victims among civilians. The actions of the police officers were inexplicable for the citizens, they got no clear indications from the power structures;

5. the police and the OMON soldiers overstepped their authority continuing to pursue, beat and detain the citizens who were breaking up after the manifestation outside the meeting. In this case, the victims were bystanders who did not participate in the action;

5. Mass riots investigation

5.1 Legal Comments Underlying the Legal Approaches of the Commission:

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  the investigation must be objective.
  
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  the court cannot go beyond the charges formulated by the investigation bodies containing the description of the specific elements of the crime.
  
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  components of a crime as a set of necessary elements sufficient for distinguishing criminal actions from non-criminal ones is the sole basis of criminal responsibility (see article 8 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The absence of even one of the elements that constitute corpus delici means the absence of the event of a crime.
  

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  resistance to the authorities is not defined as the element of mass riots corpus delici. According to the article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation such actions are defined as armed resistance.
  
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  a crime under the article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is characterized by the direct intention that requires the direction of the intent of the guilty to public safety (the object of a crime), rather than to protective activities of the police officers including public safety. The guilty must not only be aware of and consciously allow a possibility of causing harm to public safety but also to anticipate and be willing of that.
  
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  A description of the actions committed by other persons if these actions were not covered with the intent of the accused is not allowed. The description of a public event as a whole in case of a charge of certain persons under the article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has no legal consequences.
  
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  Court decisions on the application of detention in custody as a preventive measure must contain arguments analyzed and confirmed by the facts for statutory grounds for the application of this measure.
  
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  According to Part 1 of Article 108 of the Criminal Procedure Code the “taking into custody as a measure of restriction shall be applied through a court decision towards the suspect or the accused of committing crimes for which the criminal court envisages the punishment in the form of the deprivation of freedom for a term of over two years, if it is impossible to apply a different, milder measure of restriction”. If the court defines detention in custody as a preventive measure the actual circumstances that served as a ground for ​​the decision of the judge should be specified in the court order. The information not proven during the trial, in particular, the results of operative and investigative activities submitted in violation of Article 89 of this Code can not constitute such circumstances. In exceptional cases this preventive measure can be imposed on the suspect or the accused of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term up to three years if there is one of the following circumstances:
  
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  the suspect or the accused does not have a permanent place of residence in the territory of the Russian Federation;
  
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  his identity has not been proved;
  
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  he has violated a preventive measure imposed in advance;
  
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  he has fled from pre-investigative bodies and a trial”.
  
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  according to Article 37 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation infliction of harm in the state of necessary defence does not entail criminal liability.