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MOSCOW, October 23 The Moscow City Court postponed until October 25 the consideration of appeals against the extension of arrest against director Evgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk. case to justify terrorism, a correspondent reports from the courtroom.
The judge made this decision due to the fact that the court received additions to the appeal from lawyer Sergei Gruzdev, who was unable to attend the hearing today. Other lawyers, as well as Berkovich and Petriychuk, need to familiarize themselves with them.
Nobody objected to the postponement by two days.
The Khamovniki District Court at the beginning of September extended the arrest of Berkovich and Petriychuk until November 4.
The need to extend the preventive measure was justified by the impossibility of completing the investigation due to previously appointed examinations — psychological-psychiatric and psychological-linguistic auto-editing. In addition, the accused may still escape, continue to engage in criminal activity, or otherwise interfere with the proceedings, a representative of the Investigative Committee said at the time.
As follows from the materials read out in court, the case was initiated for posting on YouTube a reading of the play «Finist the Clear Falcon», in which, according to the examination, contained signs of justification of terrorism, the ideology of the “Islamic State”* and jihadism.
The defense considers the “destructological” examination on which the case is based illegal. The response of the All-Russian Federal Center for Social Expertise under the Ministry of Justice of Russia to the request of lawyers about the competence of the study states that such examinations are not carried out in the Russian Federal Center for Social Expertise and in general “destructology is not a science, nor any field of technology, art or craft, and only such are understood by the legislation of the Russian Federation as special knowledge.»
The play “Finist Yasny Falcon” was staged by Berkovich in Moscow based on the play by Petriychuk. It tells the story of women who decided to virtually marry adherents of radical Islam and go to Syria with them. The performance, created, among other things, with money from the Ministry of Culture, received the Golden Mask theater award.
*Terrorist organization banned in Russia