Viacheslav Ivankov (second from right) at the Moscow City Court building
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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A Non-Impartial Panel
// The Prosecutor's Office thinks the jury should not have let Yaponchik off so easily
The Ivankov Case
Contrary to expectations, the Moscow City Court did not deliver a final ruling in the trial of Viacheslav Ivankov (Yaponchik). On Monday, the jury acquitted Ivankov of the murder of two Turkish citizens in Moscow in 1992. All that took place in the court was a discussion of the jury's verdict. The Moscow Prosecutor's Office strongly condemned the jury' decision. Acting Moscow prosecutor Vladimir Bakun said that by not finding Ivankov guilty, the jury panel could hardly have been impartial. The prosecutor came to this conclusion on the grounds that, according to his information, most of the jury members had previous convictions or had relatives who had been charged with criminal offences.
Viacheslav Ivankov arrived in court not only with his lawyers, but also with relatives and friends. Ivankov's wife, Faina Komissar, suddenly stumbled and fell to her knees at the entrance to the Moscow City Court. As she got up, Komissar turned very red – to stumble in front of the court before the sentence is even read is considered a bad sign.
As was the case during the trial, no one was admitted to the courtroom. The discussion of the verdict took only a few minutes.
“The judge asked us only one question,” lawyer Sergey Kotelevsky explained. He asked the defense and the prosecution to formulate their demands for the sentence in connection with the acquittal. In my recollection, this was the only case where the opinions of the state prosecutors and the defense lawyers coincided. The prosecutors asked for a sentence in accordance with the law. We had no objections to this, and added only that in accordance with the law he must be acquitted.”
The defense lawyer said that sentence would be read on July 20.
After this, Ivankov went out to the TV cameras set up at the entrance to the court, and without waiting for questions said, “I forgive all my enemies.”
His conversation with the press amounted to a short monologue.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor's office showed that it wasn't forgiving anyone, had no intention of giving up, and would apparently demand a review of the jury's verdict. Bakun said yesterday that by not finding Ivankov guilty of the murder of two Turkish citizens, the jury panel could hardly have been impartial. “We know there were persons on the jury who had previous convictions, or who had relatives charged with criminal offences. According to our information, 7 of the 12 [jury members] were such people.” Bakun did not say why the prosecution had not raised the question of confidence in the jury panel and had not demanded its dismissal.
We note that nothing in the laws On the Status of Judges and On the Judicial System in the Russian Federation and the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure says that a person having relatives with criminal records may not be a juror. For jurors, it is not the fact of a criminal record that is important but whether or not it has been expunged. If it is discovered that there are persons on the jury with uncleared convictions, this may serve as real ground for filing an appeal and reversing the verdict as illegal.
One of Yaponchik's lawyers, Yury Rakitin, told Kommerant that “the prosecutor's statement is nonsense, because at the jury selection stage, the court learned which of them had previous convictions or had previously convicted or jailed relatives. And we screened out these candidates.”
Crime Department
All the Article in Russian as of July 20, 2005
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