Defender of Vladimir Balukh lawyer Dmitry Dinze gave his comments regarding the meeting of the Razdolnensky District Court.
The lawyer reported that during the court session a video recording of the corridor and the chamber where V. Baluch was located at the time of his conflict with the head of the temporary detention facility Razdolnesky District Court was demonstrated. Also, the lawyer told about the results of the interrogation of the “victim” Valery Tkachenko.
“The video of the corridor shows that Balukh stands facing the wall, surrounded by police officers. One of the police officers stands at the arm’s length from him. The head of the temporary detention facility stands between Balukh and the police officer and with a sharp shoulder movement pushes Balukh in the back in the area of the left shoulder blade. Balukh makes a step towards the wall, it is clear that he almost hit his head against the wall, and instinctively, as a self-defence, he moves with his hand backwards and hits the head of the temporary detention facility with the elbow into the abdomen area. After this push and retaliatory blow a conflict starts between Balukh and the head of the temporary detention facility, which turns into mutual altercations. Then we see how the police officers start taking Balukh to the cell, and the head of the temporary detention facility Tkachenko hits Balukh with his hand either in the head or in the body area. After that, the conflict seems to stop, but the video shows that Tkachenko goes into the cell to Balukh, says some words (according to my client, these were serious insults). As a result, Balukh, in a state of affect, takes a detergent and directs it to Tkachenko. The lid opens and the detergent pours out onto the police officer. This, in fact, is the entire conflict that was started by the police officer. ”
But according to the lawyer, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and the prosecution side consider this as “disorganization of the correctional institution.” Tkachenko himself denies any disorganization of activities. He said that the service was going on in the usual way, there was no emergency except for this conflict. Tkachenko left the territory of the temporary detention facility after these events, and no longer had any contacts or relations with Balukh.
Balukh at the court tried to find out whether Tkachenko had an unfriendly attitude towards him: for what reason he was insulting his mother, relatives, him personally.
“As far as I understood from the questions of Balukh, Tkachenko came to his workplace after drinking alcohol, with the smell of alcohol, and behaved inadequately with respect to my client. The conflict was brewing up for a long time, Tkachenko was constantly bullying him verbally or physically. Records from the cameras already show the culmination of this behaviour of the head of the temporary detention facility. During the meeting he was asked the question: “Is it true that 50% of your vocabulary swearing, which you constantly use in relation to people in temporary detention facility?” Tkachenko’s answer was: “I’m not an analyst,” – said the lawyer.
“Of course, why should a police officer analyse his behaviour and constant insults towards detainees or persons who came to court on different cases!” – said the lawyer.
Defence at the next court hearings, on 15 and 16 May, is planning to interrogate all witnesses and find out all the circumstances.
“The funniest thing in all this is that the victim did not show any activity in the case, he was not interested in the criminal case at all. He was ordered to write a report and draw up all the documents to initiate this criminal case. He personally has no material and moral claims. It turns out that the police department of Razdolnensky district was interested in another criminal case against Balukh, ” – Dinze noted and added that it was the politically motivated decision of the law enforcement bodies – once again to pursue Balukh to deprive him of his liberty for a long time and send to colony, away from Razdolnensky district.
“As far as I understand, Baluch has a conflict with all police officers here, he is not good here for them as a citizen of Ukraine, and as a moral person who believes that Crimea was occupied by the Russian side. Balukh does not hide his political position, accordingly, police officers consider him as an adherent of the “Pravyi Sector”, and he is accused in extremist views. The circumstances were not confirmed, but the anger and fury towards him remained and is seen in this criminal case, “- explains the lawyer of V. Balukh.
“I believe that there would not have been a criminal case if the police officer had not been ordered to write a report and a corresponding statement, such clashes occur every day in this temporary detention facility. Police officers do not have the right to provoke people, who are in harsh conditions of deprivation of liberty, to the conflict situations. With respect to our client, this was an obvious provocation,” – Dmitry Dinze summed up.
