The Mytishchi City Court of the Moscow Region terminated criminal proceedings against nationalist Maxim Martsinkevich (Tesak) at the request of his relatives. How informed “Kommersant”, the case was dismissed on non-rehabilitative grounds – in connection with the death of the accused.
At the same time, the family of the nationalist categorically refused such an option earlier. According to Kommersant, an application to the court for permission to close the criminal case related to Martsinkevich’s death was filed by his father. In a statement, he accepted the termination of criminal proceedings against his son in connection with his death.
Lawyer Aleksey Mikhalchik, representing the interests of the Tesak family, explained that although the investigation repeatedly suggested that the relatives end his affair, their choice was not linked to these proposals. After the court denied the relatives’ request in late 2022 that the case against Martsinkevich be tried posthumously with jury involvement, his clients “lost interest in the process,” the attorney noted.
According to him, first of all, relatives were interested in “finding out in court the circumstances of Maxim’s death, but this was completely excluded during the trial by a judge.” Therefore, Michalczyk explained, “a general decision was taken to agree to close the case”. The victims did not oppose this option either, referring to the difficulties associated with coming to court hearings, the lawyer added.
In 2009, Maxim Martsinkevich was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for inciting ethnic hatred. Subsequently, he was tried several times. He received his final 10-year sentence in 2018 for attacks on people he dealt with under the guise of fighting paedophiles.
In September 2020, Tesak was found dead in a cell at the Chelyabinsk Remand Center. According to the official version, he committed suicide, but Martsinkevich’s associates claimed that he was tortured and killed.
In December 2021, a lawyer for the Martsinkevich family announced that he had been posthumously charged with three murders. Then, based on testimony Tesak gave in police custody, six of his alleged accomplices were arrested.
In October 2022, the case was taken to court, depending on the role of each in the crimes, the defendants were charged under paragraphs “a”, “e”, “g” and “l” of part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code (murder of two or more persons, committed with particular cruelty, by a group of persons, motivated by national hatred). Besides Martsinkevich, Semyon Tokmakov, Pavel Khrulev, Alexei Gudilin, Alexander Lysenkov, Andrei Kail and Maxim Khotulev are involved in the case.
