The case of the Bashkir neo-Nazis: the version of the defense

Julia Sergeyeva

On federal TV channels and in all significant state news agencies of the country, loud news came out today: a terrorist attack has been prevented in Ufa. In the capital of Bashkiria, members of a neo-Nazi group who were preparing an attack on law enforcement agencies were detained.

"In the course of urgent investigative actions at the addresses of their residence and in a cache equipped in an abandoned building, the following were seized: a ready-to-use IED, an improvised explosive and components for its synthesis, 9 pieces of cold steel, instructions for making explosive devices, as well as portraits of the leaders of the Third Reich, nationalist S. Bandera and nationalist attributes", - the mass media are quoted by the center of public relations (DSP) of the FSB of the Russian Federation.

The Investigative Committee initiated criminal cases against the members of the group under articles "Preparing for a terrorist act" (part 1 of article 30, part 1 of article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), "Undergoing training in order to carry out terrorist activities" (article 205.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ), "Illegal manufacture of explosives or explosive devices" (Art. 223.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

For such a composition, the suspects face 10 years in prison. The detainees are in custody.

All five of those arrested are very young - they are between 18 and 20 years old. The beginning of the lasting acts imputed to him refer to the events of two years ago, that is, at that time the young people were from 16 to 18 years old. How did it happen that literally from school, Bashkir guys, under the banner of the leaders of the Third Reich, signed up as terrorists, went to collect improvised explosive devices and build secret arsenals?

"The investigation considers my client to be the organizer of a neo-Nazi gang. He is now 19 years old, at the time of what he is accused of, he was 17 years old. He entered the correspondence department, studied and worked. His troubles began when, two years ago, one fine day through social networks, a 26-year-old stranger came to him and since then every now and then offered to go to the forest, unwind, learn to shoot and make bombs", - lawyer Roman Petrov told Novye Izvestia, defender of one of the detainees.

According to the lawyer, all the suspects were in the Vkontakte interest group, where they discussed sports and the fight against drug traffickers. At a fatal moment, an unfamiliar man appears in her, much older than the guys - he is 24 years old at that time (now 26), and on enthusiasm he offers to support the "common cause", shows a lot of initiative. Then there were several personal meetings and forays into the forest, which were recorded in detail.

“Before the stranger appeared in the community, they just wanted to collect information about those who sell drugs and pass it on to law enforcement agencies. My client never preached or adhered to any neo-Nazi ideas, he did not plan any illegal actions against the authorities and law enforcement agencies. But the alien man really constantly persuaded the guys to some kind of extremist things. I took them out to play airsoft, where I brought guns, the guys themselves did not have weapons. When it came to the bomb, the senior comrade very quickly realized that they would not be able to do anything with the bomb - the boys were C grade, they didn’t even have elementary knowledge of chemistry in their heads. "Why collect a bomb?", - they asked him. At that time, the man took the statement to the FSB, says Petrov.

The older comrade, unlike the detained guys, remained in the status of a witness, he is at large.

“They ask me if he is an agent. I have no idea. All we know is that at the time of the events described, the current suspect was 16-18 years old, and he was 24 years old and he was a great authority for all the younger ones”, - says the lawyer.

Human rights activist Alexandra Krylenkova:

- According to our observations, a large bush of similar cases began about a year after the tragedy and in Kerch. Earlier, at least, there were fewer such cases.

Indeed, there are many such cases, and we have two hypotheses for this sharp surge. Either our teenagers in small towns really want to destroy and blow up everything en masse (and then the question arises, why are there so many teenagers prone to violence throughout the country?), Or for the sake of some statistics, cases are fabricated against an unprotected layer - yesterday's schoolchildren (but it is difficult to prove this due to the irreplaceable lack of information). Any of these threats, and this and that - very frightening, very scary, very sad.

A distinctive feature of these cases is that they are considered behind closed doors, not publicly, since we are talking about the criminal prosecution of minors, and, as a result, the legal community, human rights defenders have very little information, even little initial data on these cases.

In addition, the lawyers themselves refuse to enter these cases. The parents of the accused have told us more than once that they walked around the offices in their cities with their feet and they answered: "No". And one of the main questions remains, for example, the question of weapons. Under terrorist articles, schoolchildren are charged in some cases with whole arsenals of weapons, which are allegedly found in their apartments. The guys themselves, as a rule, voice the version that the weapon was either planted on them, or it is a dummy. The accusation is based on the examinations that are done by criminologists from law enforcement agencies, at the exit we have only one filled scale of Themis - the version of the FSB, the other cup is empty, so we cannot even discuss these cases substantively.

“They ask me if he is an agent. I have no idea. All we know is that at the time of the events described, the current suspect was 16-18 years old, and he was 24 years old and he was a great authority for all the younger ones, ”says the lawyer.