The Ostankinsky District Court of Moscow has begun considering a criminal case on military fakes against a local resident, Yuri Kokhovets, who took part in a Radio Liberty street poll in 2022. This follows from the database of Moscow courts.
According to SotaVision, the public prosecutor at the meeting read out the materials of the case and outlined the indictment. According to him, Kokhovets «expressed a negative attitude towards the SVO, and characterized the actions of the Russian army as criminal.»
The judge adjourned the hearing due to the fact that witnesses did not come to court. The next hearing in the case will take place on August 1. The accused is under bail.
A year ago, Radio Liberty journalists asked Moscow residents whether, in their opinion, “a détente between Russia and the NATO countries” is needed. One of the interlocutors was Kokhovets, who said: “Detente is needed, of course, but everything depends on our government. It was our government that unleashed [the war]. Putin and his gop company. <…> Our government said that it wanted to fight the nationalists, but bombed shopping centers, in Bucha our military from Buryatia, from Dagestan shot civilians for no reason at all.” Kokhovets concluded that hostilities should be stopped.
The criminal case against the Muscovite became known in March 2023. In April, Kokhovets was charged with aggravated dissemination of “fakes” motivated by political hatred (paragraph “d” of Part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). Initially, he was charged with a softer first part of the article.
The reason for the retraining was the linguistic expertise of mathematics teacher Natalya Kryukova and translator Alexander Tarasov, who found motives of hostility in Kokhovets's statement, Muscovite lawyer Elena Sheremetyeva told OVD-Info.
Prior to this, Kryukova and Tarasov acted as experts in the case of the liquidation of Memorial, as well as in the trial against the co-chairman of Memorial, Oleg Orlov, who is accused of «discrediting» the army because of a post on Facebook (part 1 Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code).