At today’s hearing at the 1st Western District Military Court in St. Petersburg, Aleksandr Skobov expressed his attitude to the expert examination of the posts on which the charges in his case are based. Skobov said that he deliberately provoked his arrest – making publications to draw attention to the need for military assistance to Ukraine:
“I have had about a hundred such publications since Russia’s treacherous attack on Ukraine. In them I evaluate Putin’s regime as a new post-industrial form of Nazism”.
Also today, expert Elena Tsvetkova, who analyzed Skobov’s posts, was questioned. Prior to her testimony, she informed the court that all the methods of expertise used by her were developed at the FSS Institute of Criminalistics.
Answering the questions of the lawyer, Tsvetkova said that she found signs of calls for a violent seizure of power in the Russian Federation in such phrases as “we support”, “we recognize” and “armed struggle”.
Expert Tsvetkova concluded that the word “Putinism” has a negative connotation because it consists of two words – “Putin” and “fascism”:
“Putinism” is a negative characterization given by political opponents of our president.”
– Why do you associate the phrase “death to the murderer Putin” with the current president of the Russian Federation? We are talking about the death of an assassin, the death of a legally elected president is not mentioned. What is the aggressiveness of this lexeme? – lawyer Kosnyrev asked.
– The words “death” and “assassin” contain a negative connotation, it is a stimulus article proposed for discussion, – answered the expert.
The psychological examination also found signs of justification of terrorism: according to the expert, the text talks about the admissibility and necessity of armed struggle against the regime in the Russian Federation. At the same time, the expert could not answer which phrases indicate these appeals.
The hearing was postponed until March 6.
Dissident and human rights activist Aleksandr Skobov has been in pre-trial detention since April 2024 on charges of “justification of terrorism” because of his posts about the attack on the Crimean bridge. In September, he was charged with two more articles: “justification of terrorism” and participation in the activities of a “terrorist community” – the Free Russia Forum.
