Not a single person was able to attend the meeting to extend the preventive measure for the defendants in the “theatrical case” Svetlana Petriychuk and Evgenia Berkovich at the Zamoskvoretsky Court in Moscow — the bailiffs took everyone out of the courthouse, including accredited journalists. Only relatives of the defendants remained in the courthouse.
The hearing was scheduled for 18:00 — this is the closing time of the court. That is, despite the fact that the meeting was formally open, it was not expected that anyone would be able to attend it.
The meeting did not start at the appointed time. According to listeners who came to the Zamoskvoretsky court in advance, Judge Zorina, who will extend the preventive measure for the defendants in the “theatrical case,” has two other cases in line for consideration, only after them Zorina will move on to the case of Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk.
On February 29, the defendants in the case were finally charged. Today will be the last pre-trial hearing before the case is transferred to the court of first instance, where the trial will begin.
Evgenia Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk have been in pre-trial detention center since May 5, 2023 on charges of justifying terrorism because of the play “Finist Yasnyi Sokol” — about women from Russia who decided to marry Islamists and go to Syria .