“The right to rehabilitation is recognized”: the prosecutor’s office has secured the termination of the criminal case of cutting trees against an orphan

On March 12, 2020, in the Krasnodar Regional Court, on the recommendation of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the criminal case against the 24-year-old orphan Vasily Popkov, who was previously accused of illegally cutting down several trees in a garden near a school in the village of Mezmay, was canceled. In January 2020, the criminal case was dismissed due to the reconciliation of the parties, but now Popkov has been found not guilty “for lack of corpus delicti”. This was reported to RT by the Prosecutor General of Russia.

“Based on the results of the audit, commissioned by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, on January 28, 2020, the deputy prosecutor of the Krasnodar Territory filed an appeal with the criminal panel of the Krasnodar Territory,” the Prosecutor General explained. - The question was raised about the cancellation of the decision of the Absheron District Court and the termination of the criminal case against Vasily Popkov in connection with the absence of corpus delicti in his actions. The appeal decision of the judge of the Krasnodar Regional Court satisfied the submission, the criminal case was terminated. ”

The supervisory authority added that Vasily Popkov “recognized the right to rehabilitation”.

Became a good lesson

Popokov himself told RT that he intended to exercise the right to rehabilitation. He connected the history of the criminal prosecution with his own naivety and credulity.

“I thought then that I was doing a good deed, I cleared the path, and then it turned out that it was not good at all,” he notes. - This is the first time I have encountered the police, stolen, trusted them, did as they spoke. It turned out that in vain. This was a good lesson to me, I will be more careful and attentive in the future. It would be bad at the age of 24 to go to jail because of nonsense. ”

Olga Labuzova, a native aunt and former guardian of an orphan who has been raising Vasily since the age of six, notes that it would have been much more difficult to achieve justice without media support.

“We are just happy,” Labuzova comments on the verdict in an interview with RT. - I honestly did not believe that, thanks to the attention of the media, it would be possible to resolve the situation. I thought that they would condemn the child and he would go to jail. Thanks to all the journalists! ”

Found hemp

Recall, as RT reported, the criminal case against Vasily Popkov was instituted under Part 2 of Art. 260 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Illegal cutting of forest stands on a large scale”), which provides for a fine of 1.5 million rubles or imprisonment for up to four years.

According to the prosecution, in March 2019, he cut down two trees growing in the territory of a local school. The victims were the district administration and the school. According to the examination, Vasily caused damage in the amount of about 66 thousand rubles.

The orphan himself denied his guilt, saying that he just wanted to clear the path so that the fallen trees would not interfere with the passage. The young man claimed that he sawed only a part of the trees felled by the wind. However, the investigation claimed that hemp was found at the scene of the crime, and this gave reason to assume that the trees fell not themselves, but were cut down.

The school then told RT that after the initiation of the case, they were forced to file an application with the police, since the trees were on the premises of the institution. At the same time, according to the director of the school, there were no dry trees in the school garden.

“The garden is about sixty meters from the school building, and nobody walks there especially. Our territory is well-maintained, there is no danger to children and passers-by. I don’t know for what purposes he then sawed down the trees, but I hope the matter will be resolved peacefully, I gave him a good description for the court. Vasily independently planted a juniper on the site as compensation, ”said the director of the school Alexandra Filippova earlier on the situation.

The district administration also explained to RT that they learned about what happened from the investigating authorities. According to officials, they themselves did not turn to law enforcement officers, but the municipality was granted victim status. The local administration also noted that for the Absheron region, the Popkov case would be the first case of attracting citizens under Art. 260 of the Criminal Code.