"The shot happened by accident": convicted of murder in a mass brawl insists on the illegality of the court decision

The Ivanovo Regional Court has begun consideration of appeals against the verdict in the case of 35-year-old Anatoly Grudistov.

According to the prosecution, the man deliberately shot 27-year-old Fazil Balaev in the head from his traumatic pistol during a mass brawl outside a nightclub.

As the investigation and the court established, a fight broke out after Grudistov and his friend stood up for a girl they knew whom Balaev had molested. 

The defense points out that Grudistov had no intention of killing the young man: he took out a pistol to scare the crowd of opponents, which began to attack him.

One of the men pushed Grudistov and his finger accidentally fell off the trigger, the lawyer notes.

The bullet hit Balaev in the eye - he died before the ambulance arrived.

In July 2020, a jury found the man guilty of manslaughter.

On the basis of this verdict, he was sentenced to one and a half years of restriction of freedom.

Grudistov agreed with this decision.

The prosecutor's office contested the court decision.

The case was sent for reconsideration.

In May 2021, a second jury found him guilty of premeditated murder.

The man was given eight years in a strict regime colony.

This verdict was appealed by both the defense and the victim - the father of the deceased.

Anatoly Grudistov declares that he is ready to be punished, but for manslaughter.

His lawyer believes that gross procedural violations were committed during the second trial.

In turn, the father of the deceased considers the sentence too lenient and intends to seek the maximum punishment - 15 years in prison.

The fight ended in a shot

On the night of July 28, 2019, Anatoly Grudistov, a resident of Ivanovo, received a call from his friend Andrei Savinov and asked him to come to the Rocco nightclub to take away his girlfriend Kristina from there.

Savinov said that an unfamiliar man in an inadequate state was bothering her and she was scared to leave herself.

Christina herself told RT that that night an unfamiliar guy approached her and her friend and began to pester her.

“He started touching my friend, we got up abruptly and walked away from him, but he followed us.

I once again asked him to leave us behind, and he began to threaten that he would throw me off the parapet, which is high enough at the club, ”the girl says.

- After these words, he took a step towards me and grabbed my ass.

I mechanically hit him in the face with my palm, and he replied - with full swing he hit me in the face twice.

The blow was so strong that I almost fell. "

Later, this version of Christina was confirmed during the trial. 

• Fazil Balaev approaches Christina and her friend at the Rocco bar.

As the girl recalls, Andrei and Anatoly arrived about 20 minutes after the incident.

Everything that happened was recorded on surveillance cameras, later the recordings were published on the network.

Judging by them, Andrei and Anatoly approached a group of people who stood at the nightclub and found the alleged offender of Christina, whose name was Fazil Balayev.

The footage shows how the men are emotionally discussing something, and then a fight begins.

The guards of the establishment try unsuccessfully to calm them down.

Someone hits Anatoly in the face and he begins to back away from the advancing people.  

During interrogations and in court, he said that he was frightened and grabbed a traumatic pistol from his pocket in order to fire a warning shot into the air (Grudistov owned the weapon legally. - RT).

Judging by the recording, at that moment several people rushed at the man, after a moment one of those who were next to him - Fazil Balayev - fell to the ground.

As it turned out later, a bullet from a traumatic pistol hit the 27-year-old young man in the eye - he died before the ambulance arrived.

After the shot, Andrei and Anatoly, seeing that Balaev was lying on the ground in blood, fled the scene.

Grudistov was put on the federal wanted list.

The man came to the police with a confession nine days after the incident.

Anatoly Grudistov's wife, with whom they are raising their little daughter, recalls that she learned about the tragedy by chance: that evening she was visiting relatives in another region.

According to her, in the morning she saw the news of what had happened and recognized her husband on the video.

Alena urgently returned home.

• The moment of the shot.

  Anatoly Grudistov - on the right, wearing a black T-shirt.

The girl explains that Anatoly was hiding because during the incident, Balaev's friends threatened him and his family.

“When he tried to get out of there, Balaev’s friends rushed at his car, promised to“ cut him ”and deal with his family.

For a while he was shocked, it was difficult to understand what had happened.

He worried about us: when I got home, I didn't even go up to my apartment, because I was sure that they would find us there.

Immediately left with the child to her parents, ”Alena told RT.

Two panels of jury

During the investigation, Anatoly Grudistov was placed under arrest in a pre-trial detention center, he was charged with murder (Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

According to investigators, in a fight near a nightclub, a man deliberately shot Balaev in the head with a traumatic pistol.

Grudistov himself insisted that the murder of Balaev was accidental.

According to him, he was not going to shoot people, but someone from the crowd grabbed his hand, because of this, the finger jumped off and he pulled the trigger.

In July 2020, the jury recognized Grudistov as causing death by negligence ”(part 1 of article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The Leninsky District Court of Ivanovo sentenced him to one and a half years of restriction of liberty and took into account the length of his detention in the pre-trial detention center, so the man was released from custody home.

The prosecutor's office appealed the court decision.

According to the law, the jury's verdict can be overturned only in the presence of procedural violations.

The prosecutor's office indicated that during the consideration of the case, the right of the victim, Fazil Balayev's father, was violated: there was no written translation into Azerbaijani of the lawyer's questions that were asked to the jury.

• Anatoly Grudistov with his wife Alena.

• © Photo from the personal archive of Anatoly Grudistov

In October last year, the sentence to Grudistov was canceled, the criminal case was again sent to the Leninsky District Court, but a new jury was considering it.

The state prosecution demanded 10 years of strict regime for the man.

In May of this year, a second jury found Grudistov guilty of premeditated murder, but deserving of leniency.

The man was sentenced to eight years in a strict regime colony.

He was also ordered to pay two million rubles to the family of the deceased. 

The verdict was appealed by both parties

This time, both the defense and the victim, the father of the deceased, Sameddin Balayev, were dissatisfied with the verdict.

The man considers the sentence of eight years too lenient: the criminal code provides for premeditated murder up to 15 years in prison.

He is sure that Grudistov shot his son on purpose.

“He himself said at the trial that that evening a friend called him and called him to the club.

He took a pistol and went to kill.

He killed Fazil in order to avenge the girl, it turns out that it was intentional, '' Balaev said in an interview with RT.

- At the first trial, I was silent and just waited for the verdict.

He was threatened with 15 years, but instead he was released.

They seem to be laughing at me.

If he is not given the sentence he deserves, I will go to the high court.

I will fight to the end. "

Balaev has already filed a motion to appeal against the verdict.

Lawyer Sergei Travin, who represents the interests of the victim in court, believes that Grudistov could not have fired by accident.

“Firstly, the pistol has a safety clip that prevents you from pressing the hook.

Secondly, if you just press - there will be no shot.

For the pistol to work, you must hold the hook pressed for at least three seconds.

If he pulled the trigger, it means that he understood that he was firing a shot, ”said the interlocutor of RT.

In turn, Anatoly Grudistov himself is seeking to qualify his case under the article on manslaughter, as the first jury did.

“The case contains testimony of witnesses, including Christina herself, a video recording from the scene.

Everything suggests that Anatoly had no intention of killing.

He does not deny his guilt, but asks to correctly qualify his actions: the shot happened by accident, during a fight, ”says his wife Alyona.

Many questions for the jury

Grudistov's defense believes that the second jury trial was held with gross violations and demands that his decision be declared illegal.

The jury consisted of 16 candidates.

All of them answered questions about themselves in writing, depending on their answers, the prosecution and defense sides deleted from the list those candidates whom they would not like to see in the collegium.

In the appeal, the defendant's lawyer Oleg Bibik indicated that when answering, some of the jurors allegedly concealed important information about themselves that could affect their conclusions. 

“After the verdict was passed, we learned that one of the jurors was Vladimir Efimo.

In the early 2000s, Efimov served in the tax police along with the husband of another juror, Elena Shelekhova.

In addition, Efimov himself expressed his position regarding Grudistov during the trial.

When we were looking at the footage from the surveillance cameras, he shouted to the whole hall: “You see, the shot was point-blank!”.

That is, even during the trial, he supported the position of the prosecution and influenced the position of the other jurors, ”said lawyer Grudistov.

According to Bibik, the presiding judge was obliged to remove the juror from participation in the consideration of the case and replace him with a substitute.

However, the judge did not.

In addition, the defense believes that the juror Elena Shelekhova could have known the state prosecutor in the case - prosecutor Yevgeny Khromov.

According to Oleg Bibik, in 2016 Khromov conducted an audit of the Ivanovo Small Business Support Fund, which at that time was headed by Shelekhova's ex-husband Alik Sharabidze.

Based on the results of the check, a criminal case was opened, as a result of which in 2017 Sharabidze was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 9.5 years.

Shelekhova herself at that time worked in a company that was associated with the Fund.

“We believe that Khromov and Shelekhova could have known each other in this high-profile criminal case.

In addition, Shelekhova hid the fact that her relative has a criminal record.

If the jury had not concealed all these facts during the selection, we could have challenged them so that they would not be included in the jury, "Bibik said to RT.

The state prosecutor in the case, Yevgeny Khromov, refused to comment on RT information about his possible acquaintance with the jury: “I will not give any comments.

Direct all questions to the regional prosecutor's office. " 

Shelekhova was not available for comment.

In turn, juror Vladimir Efimov confirmed to RT that he really served with Elena Shelekhova's husband in the tax police.

However, the man claims that he did not know Shelekhova herself.

“We served together with Sharabidze in the same department, but this does not mean that I knew his relatives.

For the first time in my life I met Elena Shelekhova in the courtroom, "the interlocutor told RT.

Anatoly Grudistov wrote an open letter to the President of the Russian Federation and the Prosecutor General with a request to pay attention to his case.

According to the man, the second jury was allegedly formed from "specially selected people" who were dependent on the state prosecutor.

It is for this reason that the second court found him guilty of premeditated murder, Grudistov is sure.

The Ivanovo Regional Court accepted for consideration the appeal of the defense.

The next meeting on the overturning of the last verdict will take place on September 27.