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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

New reprisal sentences against Alexei Gorinov and lawyer for condemning Russian atrocities in Ukraine

29.11.2024   
Halya Coynash
A Russian court has sentenced lawyer Dmitry Talantov to seven years on identical charges to those laid against Alexei Gorinov while the latter, who is already 63, has received a second sentence on equally grotesque charges

Stop the killing, end the war - Gorinova’s message from his ’cage’ in the courtroom Photo Darya Kornilova

Stop the killing, end the war - Gorinova’s message from his ’cage’ in the courtroom Photo Darya Kornilova

Updated   Over two years after Russia sentenced Alexei Gorinov to 7 years’ imprisonment for criticizing its killing of Ukrainian children, Russia has staged a new blitzkrieg ‘trial’.   Gorinov, who is now 63 and in poor health, was the first Russian to have been imprisoned under a new charge rushed into legislation on 4 March 2022 to silence protest over Russia’s war against Ukraine.  He was already serving a 7-year sentence in a medium-security prison colony.  On 29 November, he was sentenced to a further three years’ imprisonment on grotesque ‘justification of terrorism’ charges.  The new charge was based on comments Gorinov is claimed to have made to cellmates, with these also about Russian aggression against Ukraine.

While the new sentence, passed by ‘judge’ Vladimirov from the Second Western District Military Court, will only increase the period of imprisonment by one year, it will mean that the remainder of the original sentence and the additional year will be in a harsh-regime prison colony.  The increase in sentence is of particular concern in view of Gorinov’s age and a chronic lung condition which causes acute bronchitis and other illnesses.

Alexei Gorinov (b. 28.06.1961) is also a lawyer by profession but has been imprisoned since 26 April 2022 over words spoken in his capacity as a deputy of the Krasnoselsky District Council in Moscow during a meeting on 15 March, 21 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and ten days after four new charges were added to the criminal and administrative codes to silence protest.  Gorinov’s rejection of a proposal for a children’s competition when Russia was killing Ukrainian children on a daily basis was deemed to fall under several sub-sections of the newly adopted Article 207.3 § 2 (‘public circulation of knowingly false information about the use of the Russian Federation armed forces by a group of people with the use of their official position out of motives of political hatred). 

There was nothing false about Gorinov’s comments which were, in any case, an expression of his opinion.  This did not stop him becoming the victim of Russia’s first show trial under the new charges and being sentenced by ‘judge’ Olga Mendeleyeva from the Meshchansky District Court to seven years imprisonment in a medium security prison colony.  The appeal against this sentence was rejected on 19 September that year, with the court merely knocking one month off the sentence.

It became clear in October 2023 that the authorities had come up with a new charge against Gorinov of ‘public justification of terrorism’. Here too the charge is essentially of clashing with the official Russian state narrative since the alleged comments were about Ukraine’s entirely legitimate explosion on Russia’s illegal Crimea bridge and the Ukrainian Armed Forces Azov Regiment which Russia has, without any grounds, declared a ‘terrorist organization’.

This is not the first time that Russia has used comments allegedly made to cellmates as grounds for increasing sentences against political prisoners.  The same ploy was used in November 2023 to add several years to the sentence against Ukrainian civic activist Oleh Prykhodko, imprisoned for his opposition to Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

Gorinov is represented by Alyona Savelieva, who has pointed to the flaws in the charges against her client.  The charge of ‘justification of terrorism’ implies a level of publicity which in this case is entirely absent. Gorinov is imprisoned, and there is only the word of two cellmates that he even made the comments claimed.

Such sentences are a very dangerous precedent, as Russia can easily manufacture such ‘testimony’ from prisoners who are held in Russian captivity and susceptible to Russian pressure or blackmail.

It seems there is testimony from four alleged ‘witnesses’, although the four were never in the same cell with him at any one time.

Gorinov stated in court that he does not understand what exactly he is charged with and said that he has never had anything to do with terrorism.  “The given case is part of a single process persecuting citizens for expressing their position regarding the war between neighbouring countries waging for the past three years.”

Dmitry Talantov

Dmitry Talantov Photo Piervy Otdyel
Dmitry Talantov Photo Piervy Otdyel

The new reprisals against Gorinov coincided with the ‘trial’ of 64-year-old lawyer Dmitry Talantov who was sentenced on 28 November to seven years’  imprisonment on the same ‘military fakes’ charge (the new Article 207.3 of Russia’s criminal code) and for supposed ‘incitement to enmity over several Facebook posts condemning Russian atrocities in Mariupol, Bucha and other Ukrainian cities.  The 7-year sentence for telling the truth was passed by ‘judge’ Denis Melelyagin from the Zavylovsk district court in Udmurtia.  Talantov, who had been representing journalist and political prisoner Ivan Safronov, has been in detention since June 2022, having been arrested a week before Gorinov received his first sentence on 8 July 2022, under Article 207.3 for his words about Russia’s killing and orphaning of Ukrainian children. 

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