In the Nizhny Novgorod region, they began to consider a criminal case on the preparation for the murder of students and employees of school No. 121. According to investigators, the three young men discussed the attack plans on social networks. The correspondence of teenagers was opened after one of them tried to commit suicide – the police found his diaries. As a result, only one of the teenagers is going to be tried, the other two were declared insane, the law enforcement officers asked to send them for compulsory treatment. Relatives and the defense of the defendant insist that there was no real crime, and it is unlikely that the matter would have gone further than correspondence on the network, especially since he entered into an agreement with mentally ill people.
In the Bor city court of the Nizhny Novgorod region, a case has begun on preparations for a massacre at a school. The prosecution under the relevant Art. 30 and Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was brought against 18-year-old Alexander O-v, who at the time of the crime was a former minor. According to the materials of the case, in September-November 2021, the defendant became interested in the ideas of the Columbine movement (it is recognized as terrorist and banned in the Russian Federation) and “on the basis of a sense of superiority and disdain for others” decided to shoot the students and employees of school No. 121 in the Kanavinsky district of Nizhny Novgorod. The criminal plan, as follows from the announced indictment, was discussed by the defendant on the VKontakte social network and the Telegram messenger with peers. The first studied at the 121st school, and the second was Alexander’s classmate. The examination appointed by the investigation later recognized both of them as insane: one suffered from schizoaffective disorder of the depressive type, the second from paranoid schizophrenia.
The investigation believes that it was Alexander who persuaded them to participate in the attack, the teenagers assigned roles and worked out a plan of action.
According to this plan, armed Alexander and one of his accomplices were to enter the school and use smoke bombs and improvised explosive devices, and then open indiscriminate shooting, which would be facilitated by the narrow premises of the educational institution. The third participant in the attack, according to the materials of the case, was supposed to remain on the school porch and shoot at teachers and students running out of the building. The raid was scheduled for April 20, 2022, another anniversary of the planned 1999 attack on the American Columbine School. In the Nizhny Novgorod school, according to investigators, the teenagers planned to use TOZ hunting rifles of 12 and 16 gauge: they planned to steal two “barrels” from a friend, and one of the young men had to take the third gun and cartridges from his father-hunter. Another of the accused’s accomplices, who was fond of chemistry, undertook to make checkers and explosives. He found a recipe for explosives, purchased ammonium nitrate and other components from a fertilizer store and marketplaces. However, in the end, it was because of him that the criminal plan was revealed. Last January, a teenager attempted suicide by first deciding to drink a poisonous liquid and then cutting his wrists. The parents managed to save their son. The police officers who dealt with the incident found diaries and a list of future victims whom the teenagers agreed to take their lives in the first place. Chekists detained and interrogated schoolchildren, and a criminal case was opened in the Investigative Committee.
During interrogations, the detained youths said that they “hate people and want everyone to feel pain”, and “if there is hell, they want to go to hell”.
One of the first witnesses in court was the defendant’s mother, Maria Filippova. She said that her son is visually impaired of the second group due to an injury received when he was beaten on the street. His right eye sees at 8%, and the left at 30%, said the mother of the accused. He met one of his accomplices in the children’s defense and sports camp “Guards”. After his mother’s second marriage, the defendant stayed in a private house with his grandmother in the village of Oktyabrsky, she helped him with his lessons. According to the mother, the son did not show any aggression and was always calm and peaceful: the woman learned about the preparation for the crime from the investigator.
After interrogation, the court allowed her to participate in the process as a defense counsel. “Despite the fact that the son discussed it with the guys on the Internet, nothing would have happened. He would not have been able to commit a crime either morally or physically, ”said Maria Filippova, recalling that during a visit in the pre-trial detention center, her son could hardly distinguish her silhouette, and due to a recurrence of retinal detachment, he was urgently sent twice from prison for surgery in Cheboksary.
Lawyer Ivan Trunov is also sure of the innocence of the client. “He was charged with preparing to kill two or more persons in collusion with two insane people. It’s the same as showing an agreement with a cat or a dog, ”the lawyer said in court.
The defendant pleaded guilty in part, saying that he would express his attitude towards the prosecution at the end of the process, when he would testify.
The trial will continue with the interrogation of witnesses on February 21. Two other suspects, because of their diagnoses, the prosecution asked to be sent for compulsory treatment.