The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the First Court of Appeal in the case of scientist Valery Golubkin on treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code) and sent the verdict for a new trial to the appellate court, a Mediazona correspondent reports from the courtroom.
“This is means that today Valery Nikolaevich is not considered convicted, his sentence is not considered to have entered into force,” explained Golubkin’s lawyer Maria Eismont. She also clarified that Golubkin will nevertheless remain in the pre-trial detention center until the next appeal against the verdict.
The meeting was held behind closed doors, but several dozen people still came to the Supreme Court to support Valery Golubkin — his family, friends and colleagues.
Before the three judges returned from the deliberation room, Golubkin managed to tell those who came that after the verdict came into force, little has changed in his life, except that the internal rules now allow him to take a shower twice a week, and not once.
“Now I shower once a week again,” Maria Eismont joked bitterly after the verdict of the three judges.
“I don’t understand, people get dirty more often after the verdict comes into force, or what?” — Valery Golubkin’s daughter joked in response.
In June last year, Valery Golubkin was sentenced to 12 years in a maximum security colony.
A criminal case was opened against the scientist due to his participation in an international project to create a hypersonic passenger aircraftHEXAFLY-INT.
According to investigators, Golubkin passed on reports containing state secrets to his colleagues from the Netherlands. At the same time, as the “First Department” emphasizes, all documents were checked three times by specialists before sending — they did not find state secrets in the reports.
The scientist was detained in April 2021 and sent to the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. Earlier, in December 2020, Golubkin’s boss at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), Anatoly Gubanov, was also arrested in the case of treason.
In 2018 and 2019, scientists together published several articles about the HEXAFLY-INT project in the TsAGI journal . The co-author of one article, in addition to other employees of the institute, was an employee of the European Space Agency.