The court acquitted the lawyer Diana Tsipinova

The Urvansky District Court in Kabardino-Balkaria found lawyer Diana Tsipinova not guilty of violence against a police officer (part 1 of article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Recall that in 2020, three female lawyers in the KBR were not allowed to see their detained colleague Ratmir Zhilokov, having roughly thrown them out of the police department. The Investigative Committee refused to open a case against the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but the lawyers themselves ended up in the dock. At the beginning of 2023, the court found Ratmir Zhilokov guilty of assaulting policemen, but has now acquitted Diana Tsipinova. As her defender explained at the trial, the woman slapped an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs when he “began to humiliate her feminine dignity and sexual inviolability.” In the Federal Chamber of Lawyers, the court’s decision was called “a great victory for truth and justice.”

The criminal case against lawyer Diana Tsipinova was initiated in May 2020. According to investigators, on the evening of May 20, officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Urvan district checked information about the illegal organization of gambling in the city of Nartkala. The owner of the premises refused to let them inside and called lawyer Ratmir Zhilokov. The police claimed that he “began to provoke” a conflict – “hit one of the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with his forehead in the head and pushed.” He was taken to the police “for identification”. Mr. Zhilokov himself later stated that he only pointed out to the police that they did not have a number of necessary documents, but they allegedly aggressively interrupted him and handcuffed him. Lawyers Natalya Magova and Lyudmila Kochesokova arrived at the police department, according to the case file. They were refused to be allowed to see the detainee, saying that the women allegedly “did not have a lawyer’s warrant, as well as masks and gloves” (their need was due to measures to combat coronavirus). After the arrival of the third defender, Diana Tsipinova, the lawyers, according to investigators, “managed to enter the building.” They were allegedly calmly taken outside, but Ms. Tsipinova “repeatedly tried to break back into the building, and a police officer who tried to stop her hit her in the face and then kicked her in the groin area.” After that, she was detained and released from the police department only in the morning.

According to Ms. Tsipinova, she and her colleagues had both documents and masks with gloves, but the police allegedly immediately denied them access to their colleague. Lawyers by phone reported this to all instances, including the prosecutor’s office, but there was no reaction. Then they themselves went to the police department; Diana Tsipinova began to film what was happening on video, which caused displeasure of the police.

According to the investigation, the lawyer did not have the right to film in the police building, since there are materials of operational-search activities, various secret documents, and there is also a weapons room “where weapons are stored.”

The police began to push the women out using brute force, Ms. Tsipinova told Advokatskaya Street (the publication is included in the register of foreign agents): according to her, she herself fell twice during a brawl with five police officers, Kochesokova’s lawyer also fell on the concrete floor, and the lawyer Magova hit the metal doors. Ms. Tsipinova, according to her, demanded to return the phone that fell out during the brawl, but the police instead dragged her to the department, where they kept her in handcuffs all night and threatened with sexual violence. A medical examination subsequently recorded numerous signs of beatings, bruises in the chest area and a fracture of the left radius.

Diana Tsipinova and Ratmir Zhilokov appealed to the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor’s office with a complaint about abuse of power by the police (part 3 of article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The then president of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers, Yuri Pilipenko, appealed to Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, stating “a flagrant violation of the professional rights of lawyers and the requirements of the law.” He called the actions of the police officers “not only unacceptable, but also requiring a principled assessment of the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.” The President of the Chamber of Lawyers of Kabardino-Balkaria, Yuri Gegiev, also demanded that the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs bring the policemen to justice. But the Investigative Committee did not find signs of a crime in the actions of the police. The lawyers themselves ended up in the dock: a case was opened against Ratmir Zhilokov and Diana Tsipinova on the use of violence against a police officer (part 1 of article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). As reported by Kommersantseveral Moscow lawyers were detained and fined for pickets in support of colleagues near the building of the TFR.

The case of lawyers was transferred to the Main Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus Federal District. In January 2023 Urvan District Court acknowledged Ratmira Zhilokov was found guilty and sentenced him to a year and a half in prison. Two months later, the Supreme Court of the KBR changed the verdict: instead of imprisonment, the lawyer was fined 100 thousand rubles.

In May, the debate on the case of Diana Tsipinova began. The state prosecutor demanded to sentence her to 2.5 years in a colony-settlement. However, the injured policeman told the court that he considers the lawyer guilty, and the real term is inappropriate.

Advisor to the Federal Chamber of Lawyers (FPA) Nver Gasparyan in the debate elaborated on the main points of the accusation: lawyers were illegally not allowed to see the detainee, whose identity had already been established (he presented his lawyer’s license and driver’s license from the very beginning). The absence of certificates and warrants from his defenders is refuted by video recordings from surveillance cameras, which means that the police had no reason not to let them to the client. Mr. Gasparyan also called statements about the alleged legality of the use of physical force by the police against women lawyers untenable, since the actions of the defenders “did not create a direct threat to the life and health of a citizen or police officer, as well as to a protected object.” The use of violence “in the form of expulsion from the police department” was an abuse of power, Gasparyan’s lawyer said. He also noted that the indictment does not say anything about Diana Tsipinova’s phone, which was knocked out of her hands and which she tried to return. Speaking about the slap that the injured policeman complained about, the lawyer emphasized: “Diana Tsipinova steadfastly endured the insults and humiliation of her professional rights when she was not allowed to see her client. She endured physical abuse from men when she was kicked out of the police department. She survived a seizure of her property, in fact, an attack to steal her phone. But when they began to humiliate her feminine dignity and sexual inviolability, she could not stand it. And she was within her rights.” As a result, the court acquitted Ms. Tsipinova. FPA President Svetlana Volodina called the court’s decision “a great victory for truth and justice.”

Alexandra Larintseva, Pyatigorsk; Ivan Tyazhlov