25 Years in a Russian Penal Colony

``When he heard he`d got 25 years` împrisonment¸ he said: `My self-esteem has gone up, I understand that I did everything right.``

``Ìt`s the biggest score I could have got for what I did, for what I believed in as a citizen and a patriot`.`'

Maria Eismont, lawyer for Vladimir Kara-Murza, Kremlin critic

Vladimir Kara-Murza pictured during a hearing in October 2022   AFP

 

Found guilty by a Moscow court on Monday, 41-year-old British-Russian citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza has been sentenced to 25 years` imprisonment, the absolute harshest sentence of its kind following Russia`s invasion of Ukraine. Found guilty of treason and other related offences he denied he committed. That he is a critic of the Kremlin and of President Vladimir Putin, is without doubt. He has been lobbying Western governments for years to impose sanctions on Russia in recognition of its many human rights abuses.

He had been accused by state prosecutors of treason, of discrediting the Russian military by spreading `knowingly false information` about the conduct of Russian servicemen in Moscow`s `special military operation`in Ukraine, for which prosecutors requested a 25-year prison term. Prior to his arrest Kara-Murza in an interview said Russia was run by a `regime of murderers`. He had spoken throughout the United States and Europe, lecturing and accusing Russia of bombing civilians in Ukraine.

When he heard the verdict on his punishment after he was pronounced guilty of treason and other offences, and knowing the next 25 years he was destined to be an inmate in a maximum security penal colony, Kara-Murza, seated within a glass courtroom cage, pronounced his own verdict of his country: `Russia will be free`, he stated calmly. He smiled and said the harsh sentence was regarded by him as recognition of his effectiveness as an opposition politician.

A week ago in a final speech to the court, Kara-Murza compared his trial, held behind closed doors, to Josef Stalin`s show trials in the 1930s. He was proud, he said, of everything he had accomplished, declining to ask the court for an acquittal. His lawyer, Eismont, announced that the legal team planned to appeal the verdict which she described as having been marred by legal violations. 

"I love and hate this man for his incredible integrity,"

"He had to be there with those people who went out on the streets and were arrested,`

"He wanted to show that you shouldn't be afraid in the face of that evil and I deeply respect and admire him for that. And I could kill him!"

Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife, Evgenia

Britain in 2020 had imposed sanctions on the presiding judge, for human rights violations. And London summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the `politically-motivated`conviction. `Criminalization of criticism of government action is a sign of weakness, not strength`, commented U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, speaking alongside British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert who told reporters Kara-Murza had been punished for courageously speaking out against Russia`s Ukraine war.

 

`Discrediting`` the army is punishable by up to five years in prison, in reflection of Moscow having introduced sweeping wartime censorship laws, used to silence dissenting voices. Accordingly, spreading `deliberately false information` about the war can result in a 15-year jail sentence. Mr. Kara-Murza hit the jackpot. 

Vladimir Kara-Murza will serve his 25-year sentence at a penal colony   Shutterstock

A Heroine for Our Times

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a killer his soldiers are fascists, 352 children have been killed [in Ukraine]."

"How many more children should die for you to stop?"

"May the murdered kids haunt your dreams tonight." 

"I do not plan to stop, I am not afraid despite the constant intimidation from the authorities."

"The next 10 generations won't be able to clean themselves from the shame of this fratricidal war."

"I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies.We just silently watched this inhumane regime." 

"The [Mach] interrogation lasted for more than 14 hours, I wasn't allowed to get in touch with my family or friends, I was denied access to a lawyer."

"It was my anti-war decision. I made this decision by myself because I don't like Russia starting this invasion. It was really terrible." 

Marina Ovsyannikova, former state Russian TV journalist

Marina Ovsyannikova in a Moscow court room. AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

She is defiant and courageous.  She will not be intimidated, she speaks what she believes and feels. She is a Russian hero, a formerly admired state journalist whose presence on television was familiar to all Russians. When the Russian 'special military operation' was still in its infancy, not yet a month after the February 24 invasion, she staged an on-air protest against the war campaign that Moscow forced on Ukraine. Following her first March protest she was briefly placed under arrest and fined. 

 

 

She then left Russia given a short contract with the German newspaper Die Welt. When she returned to Russia it was with full knowledge that she could be re-arrested. Her return was occasioned in early July, drawn to fight for access to her two children following her ex-husband having filed a lawsuit for sole custody. And nor was she determined to keep a low profile even at that. This Russian daughter of a Ukrainian father continued to stage public protests against Russia's conflict in Ukraine.

On August 10 police raided her home to arrest her. A day later, she was charged with spreading fake news about the military, an offense that carries up to ten years in prison under a special Russian law enacted in the wake of the invasion. Any criticism, even referencing the 'special military operation' as a conflict, or the use of the word 'war' could have a protester arrested and face years of incarceration. Even while Ms.Ovsyannikova sat in the glassed-in courtroom cage, she lifted a hand-lettered sign reading: "May the murdered kids haunt your dreams tonight."

 

A resident stands next to a house destroyed by a Russian military strike in Marhanets, a town in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region on Aug. 10. (Press service of the National Police of Ukraine/Reuters)

She was ordered by the court to be placed under house arrest. To await a trial on charges of spreading false information about the Russian armed forces. Involved last month in a street protest where she held up a banner condemning Vladimir Putin as a killer, if convicted she could be penalized by ten years in prison. That being the case, the woman who is prepared to fight for the right to have access to her children may not see them again. In the mid-July protest there were two dolls lying at her feet, covered in red ink to simulate blood.

Her trial is set for October 9. A wide crackdown on anti-war protests across Russia to stamp out dissent has victimized many loyal Russians who just happen not to be loyal to Vladimir Putin. His violent incursion in Ukraine has appalled his critics, detractors and opponents. OVD-info, an independent Russian human rights watchdog, estimates that over 15,000 detentions have taken place since March, with up to 178 people facing court trials who could end up with lengthy prison sentences.

 

Former Russian state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova  Reuters

Surviving Paris ISIL Terrorism

"I hope to be able to put the word 'victim' into the past."

"When things like this happen you have no repair possible. That's why you have justice, [even if] justice can't do everything."

"It puts an exclamation point at the end of it."

Arthur Dénouveaux, Bataclan massacre survivor

"The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people,"

"[Hearing the testimony of victims was] crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation."

"It wasn't a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations."

Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death at one of the cafes

Families of victims, journalists and lawyers attend the courthouse where the trial took place under heightened security on Wednesday. (Abdulmonam Eassa/Getty Images)

 Salah Abdeslam, chief suspect and the sole survivor among the 2015 terrorist attackers who massacred 130 people -- claiming their massacre was due to the influence of the Islamic State group -- has now been convicted of murder. His sentence was the most severe possible under French law; life in prison without possibility of parole. He denied being a murderer and pleaded forgiveness for his error in judgement.

A special terrorist court had been convened to try the case of the terrorist attack against the Bataclan theatre and a number of other attacks at cafes and a sport stadium in a coordinated night of terror and death in Paris. Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder related to a terrorist enterprise. While he had contended a change of mind led him to abandon his explosives vest, in fact the court heard, it was a malfunction in the explosives vest that kept him from detonating it and slaughtering even greater numbers.

 

A courtroom sketch shows Abdeslam as the verdict was read at the courthouse on the Île de la Cité in Paris on Wednesday. (Elisabeth de Pourquery/France Televisions/Reuters)

 

A special French court Wednesday also found twenty men to be guilty of involvement in the Bataclan attack as well as on Paris cafes and France's national stadium. Presiding Judge Jean-Louis Peries read the verdicts surrounded by tight security, to close out the nine-month trial. Eighteen defendants aside from Abdeslam were given terrorist-related convictions.

Harrowing victim accounts were heard in the packed main chamber of the 13th Century Justice Palace aside from the testimony of Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the ten-member attack team that gave Paris a Friday night that would forever haunt the city. There were a dozen overflow rooms and they were fully packed. Of the other defendants six were accused of a direct role in the Mach 2015 attacks in Brussels, claimed as well by the Islamic State group.

 

A court sketch shows Salah Abdeslam standing (far R) alongside the other 13 defendants in court this week   Benoit PEYRUCQ/AFP

 

The remainder of the defendants faced accusations of assisting with logistics or transportation. The most conspicuous change related to that fateful day in March 2015 is armed officers patrolling public spaces constantly. Most of the attackers were born and raised in France and Belgium, which led to soul-searching by authorities while at the same time the lives of those who suffered losses or bore witness were forever transformed. Of the ten-member attacking team, six are presumed to have been killed in Syria or Iraq.

A French police officer stands guard in front of the Bataclan concert venue during a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the deadly terror attacks in Paris, on Nov. 13, 2020. Chief suspect Salah Abdeslam was convicted Wednesday of murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

A Psychopath Is A Psychopath Is A Psychopath : Choices and Consequences

"There is no question he has a very highly developed concept of the rule-nature of the wrongfulness of this. The problem is his comprehension of the real, horrific impact that something like this would have on other people."

"Which I really, honestly, like, whatever I say in this evidence, I don't think he understands that."

"He is stuck at an early developmental stage of the development of moral judgement. He understands the rules, he can articulate the rules, he has a very sophisticated understanding of the rules."

"It was in that environment [shadowy corners of the Internet] that he conceived of what he ultimately did. He was saturated in horrible material ... it became for him one of his areas of real focus and so it was something he spent a lot of time looking at and thinking about and ruminating on and, I don't doubt, that in the absence of this sort of thing, this would not have happened."

"He doesn't have any emotional connection -- he doesn't experience remorse, he doesn't experience regret, but he also doesn't experience sadism. It doesn't feel to him like he is great now, it is just nothing."

"I hate to bring this up, but it really has the dissociative quality of someone who is playing a video game. That really is the flavour of how he completely and dispassionately talked about all of this. It is as abstract as killing people in a video game, which is a horrific thing for me."

Dr.Alexander Westphal, psychiatrist, autism specialist, Yale School of Medicine

"[If Minassian has a clear understanding of the physical consequences of his actions], what is it he doesn't get?" 

"I don't think that's the measure of it, though [that Minassian appears incapable of fully appreciating the impact of his actions]. If he kills a person who is alone in the world with no friends and no relatives and nobody to mourn his loss, it is nevertheless a murder."

"I don't know that to understand that you've committed murder and what its consequences are you have to envision how many people will be upset about it."

Justice Anne Molloy, Ontario Superior Court

 

At the ongoing trial for Alek Minassian, 28, diagnosed as a child with autism, considered to be high-functioning,  and never known to exhibit violent tendencies, but who was charged with ten counts of murder and 16 counts of attempted murder for having deliberately driven a rented van through a busy sidewalk in Toronto in 2018 for the express purpose of hitting as many people as he possibly could, the mental state attributed to him at the time of the atrocity is front and centre. 

The man freely agrees that his intention was to kill people, but  he has pleaded not guilty, insisting that his autism had been in the way of his complete understanding of the outcome of his actions and their seriousness. He is asking to be found not criminally responsible for having planned the carnage by renting a van and setting out to drive it onto a busy intersection on a beautiful day in Toronto when people were out enjoying the sun, doing their shopping, and generally appreciating life.

Dr. Westphal is a forensic psychiatrist who specializes in autism, a professor at Yale University. He was hired by Minassian's legal team for an expert opinion on the man's mental state which propelled him to attack defenceless people and target them for death. He holds that the autistic man had a distorted view of reality, to the degree that he suffered delusions, generally recognized as the basis for legal defence of not criminally responsible for reasons of mental disorder, similar to psychosis, while at the same time attesting that people with autism are by and large not violent.

Excerpts of video interviews that Dr.Westphal undertook with Minassian were shown to the court, where Minassian recounted his attack in detail, speaking matter-of-factly, referring to the initial group of those he hit with the vehicle at speed as "the first batch". Of another group of victims, he said "I hit them all in a line", referring further to some of his victims recalled as "an old lady", a "man crossing the road", seemingly detached, merely describing something he had witnessed, as though it was not he who was the cause of the destruction and bloodshed.

 

Alek Minassian, screengrab of the booking video. Photo by Toronto Police Service

Minassian expressed personal outrage only when it was suggested that he might be viewed as a "bully" for choosing to inflict such deadly violence on vulnerable people. A suggestion that caused him to erupt loudly with a heated disclaimer: "I'm not a bully. I hate bullies, how could anyone think that!" A statement that seems consistent with Dr. Westphal's assertion that though 28 years of age and a high-function person with autism, Minassian labours with a childlike conception of morality.

What appears not in dispute is that Alek Minassian immersed himself in the dark areas of the Internet where he became obsessed with school shooters and mass murderers, fringe sub-culture and black humour and death. Where delivering death is lightly regarded as an assault on humanity, and the deliverance of death seems to be a venerated topic. He was absorbed with online forums dedicated to the ideology of 'incel'; the 'involuntarily celibate', a marginal subculture of angry men furious about their incapacity to attract women's sexual interest.

"My personal opinion is that, I accept that autism spectrum disorder, including high-functioning autism spectrum disorder, is a significant mental disorder. I don’t believe it reaches the impact that psychosis does." 

"To get to the type of impact on the operating mind that I’m used to, you need to be psychotic. So I can’t get my head around how this would impact on a person’s operating mind to the person that would get them into Section 16 [the section of the Criminal Code that lays out the criteria for being found not criminally responsible]."

"[Based on the assessment done by himself and his team, Minassian is not a psychopath, which would include being manipulative and showing a] callous lack of empathy, [and does not have narcissistic personality disorder or depression]." 

Dr.John Bradford, professor of forensic psychiatry, (retired), head, Division of Forensic Psychiatry Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa.

"I would have probably still gone ahead with it and made sure I would have died instead of being arrested [on another attempt, and be more selective in targeting, seeking out female victims between the ages of 18 and 30, for] sensationalism [to add to his killing spree] narrative [making it more interesting and memorable]."

"[Female victims would be more] consistent [with his incel story, something he would get a] pat on the back [for from people on the Internet]."

"I’m not sure if I would or not [attempt an another act of mass murder if  he were to be released]. I would certainly think about it. I’m not sure if I would actually go through with it or not." 

"I would be hoping to achieve maybe just like another recognition of it or the fact that there is another kill count." 

"[A website tracks] score cards [for mass killers noting their] kill count versus their survivor count."

"Let’s say they kill 20 people and then there was 100 percent all 20 people he intended to kill died, that would be a very high score, especially because of the number of killings." 

"Now that would basically be the purpose of the kill count."

Alek MInassian, post-carnage interview with Toronto Police Service

 

Not Criminally Responsible? "I Just Floored the Pedal"

"[My client's] state of mind at the relevant time and in the days, weeks and months leading up to April 23, 2018, are expected to be the central issues at trial."
Boris Bytensky, lawyer, Alek Minassian pretrial material

"You look at the interview which happened reasonably quickly after the incident -- and he appears to be oriented as to time and space, he is not thought-disorganized, he doesn't appear to be suffering from a break with reality."
"He clearly had the ability to plan this and he had the ability to drive, which in itself indicates you're fairly well oriented. And his motivation -- although it is very difficult for us to understand it -- is not one that suggests he is suffering from voices in his head telling him to drive down the sidewalk."
"He was surprisingly lucid when he was answering questions. He does not fit in any of the classical understandings of having the most usual major mental disorder that people have when found to be NCR, which is schizophrenia."
"Of course, we don't know everything at this point. We don't know his psychological antecedents."
"What I saw there is somebody that is very angry at the world and that is not a defence in law."
"It's a responsible step to take to explore that option, because if indeed he is not criminally responsible he would not belong in the correctional system."
"I can't predict the future, but whatever facility he is in, whether it's a correctional one or a mental health one, he is going to be spending a long, long time there."
Ian Scott, Toronto defence lawyer, law professor, Western University

"It is a very snapshot moment in time [when the crime was being committed]. It is about what was going through the mind of the accused at a specific moment."
"The court has to weigh how that information relates temporally and otherwise to the mental state of the person at the time of the commission of the offence -- not how they may present at the time of the interview."
"It is a high threshold."
"The result of an NCR designation, at the end of the day, is not an acquittal. There is a very common public misunderstanding that the NCR designation is a get-out-of-jail-free card. That is not what happens."
Anita Szigeti, Toronto lawyer, president, Law and Mental Disorder Association

The 10 people killed in the attack were, from top left: Sohe Chung, 22, Renuka Amarasingha, 45, Andrea Bradden, 33, Dorothy Sewell, 80, Geraldine Brady, 83; from bottom left, Munir Najjar, 85, Anne Marie D'Amico, 30, Ji Hun Kim, 22, Betty Forsyth, 94, and Chul Min (Eddie) Kang, 45. (Ben Shannon/CBC)

He outright killed ten people, by ramming them with a lethal weapon, a rental van. Another sixteen people were injured in last year's van attack. Alek Minassian planned the attack, and meant to kill as many people as he could manage to. He was angry, angry with the world, angry with women who failed to appreciate his gentlemanly qualities, angry with the stupid men that those women who ignored him flocked to. He had online contacts with other men who were similarly angry that they too were unable to attract the attention of young women. They named themselves the 'incels'.

And they planned their revenge on a world where women chose men other than themselves, ignoble men, as opposed to the gentleman-like behaviour of the 'involuntary celibates' group like themselves. They would take their revenge by selecting a random group of victims to pay the price of their psychological agony created by a baffling biological selection system where women are attracted to certain types of men with typical masculine attributes, while leaving the intellectually choice and female-respecting men in high dudgeon, deprived of the emotional and physical comfort of partnerships.

Above all, stressed Alek Minassian, he was a 'gentleman'. That gentleman is a destroyer of lives. Deliberately targeting strangers to pacify his inner rage at being left behind. So he rented a van for the specific purpose of using it as a battering ram, targeting a busy street crowded with pedestrians. He is proud of his exploit, satisfied that he succeeded in what he set out to do. He would have preferred, however, to have taken a greater toll. Regret? certainly not! Any compunction over killing people? Perish the thought.

Alek Minassian, 25, of Richmond Hill, arrested after he drove a van into pedestrians.

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He had what he felt was a good reason for committing what society considers a shocking atrocity and what he feels is due vengeance on that society condemning him. And he may yet get the last laugh. In an interview with police directly after the dreadful event, he was clear in informing his interrogator that the result of the van-ramming pleased him greatly. "I feel like I accomplished my mission", he responded when asked how he felt afterward. Oh, and just incidentally, he is pleading "not guilty", and will so declare in February of 2020 when the trial is scheduled to commence.

As for guilty or not, trial judge Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy's pretrial ruling noted that the identity of Minassian as the van driver in the attack is not at issue, and nor has the man's lawyer disputed the admissibility into evidence at trial of his client's detailed confession to police. He killed and wanted to kill greater numbers, but is pleased with the outcome, and would do it all again given the opportunity. But guilty? Why would he be seen to be guilty of committing an act killing perfect strangers nominated by him to represent the very society that had so horribly harmed him?

Last week the video of his interrogation was released. It was seen and weighed by experts in the field of criminal law and psychiatry. Minassian had informed Detective Rob Thomas that the van attack was planned by him and committed as part of a larger, "incel rebellion". Video statements, personal history and psychiatric assessments -- according to Anita Szigeti who focuses on mental health and the law, and who spoke in a general scope -- can all be useful in guiding the court to decide whether the accused in such a case qualifies to be designated NCR.

It would be difficult to argue, using the same logic and viewing the calm statements from the accused, that anyone sufficiently aroused in anger and planning to exact revenge, can claim to be themselves not criminally responsible, since the state of rage rendered them incapable of viewing their intention as a grievous assault on public safety and security. All crimes of passion, then, could be absorbed into the NCR net. How high is that threshold?

And oh, that other little factoid, that accused held not criminally responsible are confined in psychiatric wards and hospitals, placed on drug protocols to control their mental illness, and invariably remain incarcerated for far shorter periods to protect the public, than those found guilty of crimes they commit and imprisoned. Even though psychiatrist reports deem them likely to re-offend should they not commit to their medications or other causes, they are given early release back into society. And society must live with that.

Minassian carried out the attack in a busy area of Yonge Street on April 23, 2018. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press)