Thread by @pevchikh

The trial of Alexei Navalny continued after a weekend break. Today was the sixth day. Here is how it went, it was quite spectacular. Thread.

At the start of the day, the press secretary of the court warned everyone that the journalists won’t be able to see a certain part of today’s session. Apparently, some unannounced secret witness was going to testify today.

A screen was installed in the improvised courtroom. Many thought that this was done for one of the witnesses in the fraud case, entrepreneur Vyacheslav Kuzin. He is currently under house arrest for his past banking activities and would need to testify via a video call.

Today’s first witness was Yulia Stadnichuk. According to her, she read about Navalny’s previous trial in 2021 and got deeply insulted by his words towards the court and the judge. Stadnichuk read everything from a paper she had with her - even her answers to Navalny’s questions.

The next witness was Vyacheslav Snegirev, a forensic expert who conducted an expertise on the fraud case. This formally independent expert personally participated in the recording of evidence onto discs before analysing this evidence, but he saw absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Navalny asked Snegirev directly how much money, according to the expertise, he and his family have received from the Foundation. “Well, zero, it seems” - answered the expert. “So why am I being trialled then?” - Navalny asked. The judge dismissed the question.

The court put our investigation about Russian propagandists () on the screen. During a cutaway with Vladimir Solovyov camping around, two of the three bailiffs laughed together with Navalny. The third bailiff kept a straight face.

The person that the prosecution wanted to question via video call today turned out to be Vitaly Kostenko, one of the two bogus witnesses in the fraud case. The prosecutor cited Kostenko’s poor health, but it’s obvious that they were ashamed to bring him into court in person.

Navalny’s lawyers protested - the acoustics of the courtroom wouldn’t allow everyone to hear Kostenko clearly, and the ban on technical devices would make proper defence practically impossible.The judge dismissed the protest.

Kostenko, who lives near St. Petersburg, was brought to another court closer to him to be questioned from there through a video conference call. He couldn’t hear anything the judge was saying, so her colleague in the other courtroom repeated every question to him

Kostenko allegedly filed a request to make the court session closed - he allegedly feared that Navalny’s supporters may disclose his personal data, which would create a threat to his health and safety.

The sound quality of the conference call was abysmal, the court session turned into a shouting match. Journalists could make out two phrases that Kostenko shouted: “I don’t remember anything!” and “I have no claims!”

Kostenko shouted that he wants the session to remain open. The judge and the prosecutor desperately tried to convince Kostenko that he needs to be questioned behind closed doors, so that no one hears his testimony. Navalny laughed.

Kostenko claimed that his criminal complaint against Navalny was written not by him, but by lawyer Ilya Remeslo. The request to classify his questioning wasn’t written by him either - the signature on it didn’t match Kostenko’s signature on the interrogation protocol.

The court finally decided to keep the session open. The prosecutor asked whether the name “Anti-Corruption Foundation” tells Kostenko anything. He answered: “No”.

Navalny: “Did you transfer the money to me personally? Or to Volkov?”
Kostenko: “Yes, yes, to you personally. Or to Volkov. I don’t remember”
Navalny: “Did Volkov return you the money?”
Kostenko: “Yes”
Navalny: “So did I steal any money from you?”
Kostenko: “I wouldn’t say so”

In his 2021 testimony, Kostenko claimed that he had watched a lot of Navalny’s anti-corruption videos and mistrusted him. When asked where he saw these videos, he said “On the TV, most probably on Channel One”. It soon became clear that he hadn't seen any of them.

The prosecutor insisted on reading out the testimony that Kostenko allegedly gave to the investigator in 2021. “We will now read what you said earlier, and then we will ask clarifying questions, so listen carefully and tell me if you don’t hear something!” - she said to him.

The judge and the prosecutor tortured the old man with endless questions, trying to squeeze the “correct” answers out of him. He mostly answered “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember”. At one point, he pleaded: “Please, I just want all this to end”.

The court summoned the next witness, Kostenko’s wife Vera. Unlike her husband, she came to the colony in person. She spoke clearly and confidently, but when asked whether she knows anything about the Anti-Corruption Foundation, she also said “No”.

Vera was much more eager to slander Navalny than Vitaly. She said that her husband learns all the news from her, and she was the one who told him about Alexei. However, she also failed to explain where Kostenko got the non-public account number of the Foundation from.

Kostenko explained that Ilya Remeslo merely helped her and her husband testify, and the investigator wrote down everything they said. It is obvious though that their testimonies had been written for them.

This whole farcical trial is crumbling before our eyes. The witnesses refuse to testify, the evidence is nonexistent. Stop this nonsense right now. Free Navalny.