The Primorsky Regional Court overturned the guilty verdict in the case of the deputy of the legislative assembly of the region, the former first secretary of the Vladivostok City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Artem Samsonov. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for child molestation. The case has been remanded for retrial. The regional court also changed the preventive measure policy – from detention to house arrest. The defense intends to seek his full acquittal during the second trial, the deputy himself is sure that the case is politically motivated.
On Monday, February 27, the Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Primorsky Krai Court, having considered the appeal of the defense in closed session, overturned the verdict to Artyom Samsonov, a member of the regional parliament. The case was sent for a new trial to the same court of first instance in a different composition. The regional court also softened the preventive measure for the politician – he was sent from SIZO-1 in Vladivostok under house arrest.
“The ideal option for us would be an acquittal, but it is clear that this was unlikely — for this, the judges of the criminal collegium must have a fair amount of courage to cancel the decision of the court of first instance on guilt,” commented the deputy’s lawyer Natalya Kasilova on the decision of the regional court. She added that the regional court announced only the operative part of its decision and the reasons for the annulment of the verdict of the court of first instance will become known after receiving the motivational part. A retrial, in her opinion, could begin as early as March. “Our position will not change – we insist on Samsonov’s full acquittal. We have all the evidence of his innocence,” said Ms. Kasilova.
It is worth noting that in the last word, when considering the appeal of the defense, Artem Samsonov was sure that the guilty verdict would be approved.
“I don’t understand why in our courts the accused is given the last word, if the decision on his guilt is made at the moment of his detention and not by the court, and the verdict, although it is decided by the court, is decided in advance and definitely not in the deliberation room,”— the deputy said.
The prosecutor’s office of Primorye refrained from commenting.
Recall that in September last year, Deputy Samsonov was found guilty by the Sovetsky District Court of Vladivostok of committing a crime under paragraph “b” of Part 4 of Art. 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (other acts of a sexual nature using the helpless state of the victim, committed against a person under the age of 14). The politician was sentenced to 13 years in a strict regime colony.
According to investigators, in 2018, at one of the recreation centers in the suburbs of Vladivostok, a deputy showed an 11-year-old boy a dildo and “brought him information about its purpose.”
During the investigation and trial, the politician flatly refused to plead guilty. He insisted that the accusation was based on a slander by members of the same family (the boy’s father, his mistress and her adult son).
“I declare that I did not see this child on this beach and saw him for the first time on November 17, 2021 at a confrontation,” Mr. Samsonov said. Speaking at the trial with the last word, the deputy said that 25 witnesses confirmed that “they have never seen the guy whom the investigation appointed as the “victim” at the time and in the place where, according to the prosecution, the incident occurred.”
“The case against me was falsified for political reasons. If I hadn’t headed the Vladivostok branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, if we hadn’t defeated United Russia a year ago in all constituencies in the city of Vladivostok, we wouldn’t have had to choose the Duma of the city of Vladivostok on September 11, 2022, there wouldn’t have been this absurd accusation, and I wouldn’t have been in jail now on this bench,” Mr. Samsonov said at the trial in September last year.
In the elections to the parliament of Primorye in September 2021, the candidates from the Communist Party won in 8 out of 11 single-mandate constituencies in Vladivostok.
Then Artem Samsonov was elected for the third time as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the region. The entry of the guilty verdict into legal force meant the loss of the deputy mandate.