The Preobrazhensky Court of the capital began to consider the criminal case of Alexander Kravchenko, the former head physician of the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center. According to the prosecution, he abused his official powers during the medical examination, which led to the illegal release of four convicts. The defendant himself did not admit guilt, and his defense believes that the actions of the doctor not only did not cause any serious consequences to anyone, but, on the contrary, helped to prevent them. Earlier, the investigation charged 42-year-old Kravchenko with bribery, but the investigation could not prove that the doctor received a bribe.
The former head doctor of the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center was taken to the trial under escort – since January 20, 2022, he has been in custody. Since then, the defense has repeatedly tried to mitigate his preventive measure, insisting on the release of the father of three children under house arrest, but the court did not agree to this. During the first hearing in the case on January 11, the court left the person involved in the pre-trial detention center until June 22.
The arrest of Kravchenko in January 2022 made a lot of noise, because, according to the initial wording of the prosecution, the head physician of Matrosskaya Tishina in 2020-2021 for bribes (part 3 of article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – from a fine to imprisonment for a term of three to eight years) organized medical examinations, “as a result of which deliberately illegal decisions were made on the presence of serious illnesses among convicts and other persons.” In total, the investigation announced eight arrests, released from custody “as a result of falsified diagnoses.”
In addition to taking bribes, the investigation charged Kravchenko with abuse of power (part 1 of article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – from a fine to four years in prison). According to the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in Moscow, it was expressed in the fact that, at the direction of Kravchenko, without sufficient grounds, one of the prisoners, a criminal “authority”, spent several months in the Matrosskaya Tishina hospital. Thus, Kravchenko unreasonably improved the conditions of his detention.
Instead of bribes – abuse of power
However, towards the end of the investigation, the accusation of taking bribes under Part 3 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has disappeared. And Kravchenko’s actions were reclassified as abuse of power, which entailed grave consequences (part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – up to ten years in prison).
According to the final wording of the indictment, the doctor, “having misunderstood the instructions of the leadership to reduce the prisoner limit,” decided to unload the pre-trial detention center, releasing four convicts on medical grounds. At the same time, Kravchenko, who had 15 years of work experience, did not organize a second additional examination of these persons.
It is worth noting that the Matrosskaya Tishina SIZO hospital is the only place in the capital region that conducts medical examinations of convicts – those who have already been sentenced. Remand prisoners who have serious illnesses that prevent detention are examined by doctors from institutions of the Moscow Health Department.
medical mystery
Earlier, at a meeting on January 11, the prosecutor announced the plot of the charge, and the defendant expressed his attitude towards him, stating that he did not admit guilt in excess or abuse of authority. Kravchenko voiced a similar opinion to the journalists who came to the court on February 7. After that, as expected, the interrogation of witnesses for the prosecution will begin. In total there are about two dozen of them in the case. Among them are former subordinates of Kravchenko, who were members of the commissions that decided to release convicts on medical grounds due to the presence of serious illnesses.
However, reporters were not destined to hear their speech: at the request of the prosecutor, the proceedings were closed. The public prosecutor substantiated her request by the fact that during the trial, diagnoses would be discussed, which constitutes a medical secret. The defendant himself and his lawyer Dmitry Roshchin opposed, insisting on a public hearing of the case. However, the court granted the request of the prosecution, and the journalists were asked to leave.
Commenting on the charge brought against the defendant, the defender stated that he considers it unfounded, as well as the motives referred to by the investigation.
motives
“According to the investigation, Kravchenko misunderstood the instructions of the leadership to reduce the limit of prisoners and decided to unload the pre-trial detention center, releasing four convicts on medical grounds. How the release of four convicts could help to significantly reduce the workload of the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, which, according to some reports, contains more than 1,700 prisoners, is not clear, Dmitry Roshchin noted. “Moreover, all the people recognized as seriously ill by medical commissions led by Kravchenko really had serious illnesses and were hospitalized for a long time in medical institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service. However, according to the prosecution, they were insufficiently “examined” by Kravchenko.” According to the lawyer, the serious consequences, according to the investigation, are that due to the release of four convicts, “the principle of the inevitability of punishment, as well as the authority of the Federal Penitentiary Service and the position held by Kravchenko, suffered.” “And the fact that people could simply die without receiving inadequate medical care in the colonies is not taken into account by the investigation and is not considered serious consequences,” the lawyer said.
He noted that all the persons released by Kravchenko were “really seriously ill people.” One was in a coma, another, after a stroke, was brought to the Matrosski hospital in a wheelchair with the left side of his body taken away, the third suffered from heart failure, the fourth was sick with a rare autoimmune neuromuscular disease – myasthenia gravis.
According to the lawyer, the investigation simply invented “serious consequences”. “The investigators do not write anywhere that the convicts fled somewhere or committed a new crime. All of them, in case of recovery or the absence of serious illnesses, even now can be returned to custody to serve time. The law allows it. However, this was not done,” Roshchin said.
The defender also finds untenable the argument that Kravchenko left the fifth prisoner in the hospital “in order to gain authority among the criminal contingent of the pre-trial detention center.” “What need could there be for a lieutenant colonel of the Federal Penitentiary Service, who has many awards and commendations during his service, who heads the largest medical branch of the penitentiary system in Moscow, to gain authority among people with a criminal past?” asks the lawyer.
Witnesses for the prosecution
At the meeting on February 7, two witnesses testified in court. One of them, the former deputy chief physician of the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, said that Kravchenko actually forced him to conduct a medical examination of one of the convicts when he was on vacation. At the same time, when asked by the defense whether the head physician pressured him to conduct a medical examination with a certain result, the witness answered in the negative. He admitted that he doubted the correctness of the diagnosis of the patient with myasthenia gravis, believing that the patient’s condition “was not that bad.” However, he did not confirm the testimony he had previously given during the investigation that Kravchenko called him and “in an ultimatum form” demanded that the diseases identified in the patient be recognized as reliable.
The second witness, a member of the commission of the SIZO hospital and the attending physician of two convicts, during the interrogation in court stated that Kravchenko did not exert pressure on her during the medical examination. She said that she was confident in both the diagnosis of the patient with myasthenia gravis and the patient with a stroke. The latter, according to the doctor, did not move the left side of the body, he was in a wheelchair, and the pressure was under 200.
Interrogation of witnesses will continue on February 21. Among them is the head of the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, lieutenant colonel of the internal service Sergey Bobryshev.