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Trial of Russian opponent Ilia Iachine: "A case to silence him"

The Russian opponent Ilia Iachine, here on November 7, 2022, faces up to ten years in prison.

AP - Dmitry Serebryakov

Text by: Anissa El Jabri Follow

6 mins

The trial of the Russian opponent Ilia Iachine opens this Wednesday, November 23 in Moscow.

Ilia Iachine, 39, is on trial for "false information about the Russian army".

The hearing must take place behind closed doors.

Interview with his lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov. 

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He is one of the last major opponents left in Russia.

Like all the others,

and only has social networks to express herself.

Arrested at the end of June and immediately sentenced to a fifteen-day prison term for "disobedience to the police", he has been prosecuted since mid-July for "disseminating false information about the Russian army".

His lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, is also that of

.

He had previously defended Boris Nemtsov, an opponent assassinated on February 27, 2015.

RFI: 

Vadim Prokhorov:

The fact is that it is very difficult to try a civil or administrative case behind closed doors.

At a minimum, you have to be able to present several reasons, even if on that, I think it's almost over.

In a criminal case, it is always possible to raise the secrecy of the investigation.

However, 99% of criminal cases in Russia are tried in public.

But here too, I think the trend will go more and more towards behind closed doors, quite simply so that the general public and the media cannot see the extent to which certain cases are fabricated from scratch, absolutely unjustified and in actually illegal, totally sewn with white thread.

With regard to political cases in particular, the courts simply do not want to provide a platform for representatives of the opposition to prevent them from spreading their ideas.

It is something that comes from afar.

In the Soviet Union, the authorities even said: “

 ”.

Bukovsky and Ginsburg, Vadim Delaunay and many others were convicted precisely for their political activities.

With specific regard to Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, my clients, their cases have long been officially recognized as “political”.

They have themselves been recognized as political prisoners by a number of human rights organizations, in particular Memorial [NGO classified as a foreign agent in December 2021, editor’s note] and Amnesty International.

What can you tell us about the arguments you are going to present in court?

I will present a certain number of them concerning the article of the Penal Code used against Ilia Iachine.

This recent provision is for me clearly unconstitutional.

Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the so-called anti-fake news article, is actually used to fight the opposition.

Moreover, even if we put aside the dispute on the principle of this provision of the Penal Code, we think that there is no reason to use it against Ilia Yachine.

No reason, no concrete example.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

It is clear that this case was only opened to silence him, at least for a while, as a well-known figure in the opposition and as a figure against the presence of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and the silence at any cost.

It's not like it's a surprise.

But the fact is that prosecutors use an extremely serious criminal motive for this, which can involve five to ten years in prison.

How is Ilia Iachine?

Ilia Iachine doesn't like being in prison at all, and that's quite logical!

This is absolutely not what he wanted.

But it's not a big surprise for him either.

He often repeats it: the authorities made it clear to him that they would have preferred to see him in exile, but he chose to stay in Russia.

And given the current situation, the authorities are literally rolling over what is left of the Russian opposition and Ilya Yashin as its representative.

You also defend Vladimir Kara-Murza.

What differences and similarities between their cases?

They have a lot in common.

First, the article of the Criminal Code used against them is the same: they are both accused of having disseminated false information about the valiant Russian army in Ukraine.

It is clear to everyone that all this fits precisely into the framework of the events unfolding in our country related to the conflict in Ukraine.

What they have in common is facing the desire to silence and repress influential members of the opposition movement in the Russian Federation.

It must be said that many people in Russia are against the presence of soldiers in Ukraine.

It is necessary to prevent my clients from being able to collect them. 

There are also differences.

In particular, in the case of Ilia Yashin, the authorities limited themselves to presenting against him this single article of the Penal Code.

For Kara-Mourza, these are two articles.

The most serious of them is the one on so-called high treason.

He already faces 24 years in prison.

Kara-Mourza is also a strong-willed man.

He is also energetic and he will fight, as he fought for freedom from Russia and continues to do so even from prison.

He will fight for himself, but also for the truth.

No matter what comes from the authorities and no matter how they try to make him some kind of traitor.

He's one of the most patriotic people I know.

And you, why are you staying in Russia?

I have been asked this question for several years now.

And I would like to say that the process of ousting opposition lawyers from the corporation has begun, or rather has been going on for quite a long time already.

In particular, Ivan Pavlov had to go abroad.

At that time, he was also dealing with many cases of opponents, of those who were accused of treason.

My friend Mark Feigin was simply expelled, stripped of his status as a lawyer.

Yes it is difficult.

But I have always defended the representatives of the opposition.

I've been doing it since 1999 and I'm not going to give it up.

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