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Chemist Jailed In Russia For Giving Expert Opinion In Court
scibri writes "Think the imprisonment of Pussy Riot is a miscarriage of justice? Check out the story of their cellmate: Chemist Olga Nikolaevna Zelenina heads a laboratory at the Penza Agricultural Institute. She is an expert in the biology of hemp and poppy, and is a sought-after expert in legal cases involving narcotics produced from these plants. Last year, she was asked by defense lawyers to give her opinion in a case involving imported poppy seeds. The prosecutors didn't like her evidence though, and now she's in prison accused of complicity in organized drug trafficking."
Clearly a criminal mastermind. Russia's answer to Walter White.
Wow, sort of like the private equity firms that support Romney getting investigated and subpoena'd while MF Global and John Corzine (an Obama supporter) go free. As the government behemoth grows, so does the need to appease the beast lest you suffer the wraith of those in power. Sad.
Well, from the looks of the article, her testimone prevented someone from facing jail time. And clearly someone needed to be jailed. A simple and obvious solution, if you ask me. </sarcasm>
Outlaw science!
I would think that maybe this is not related to that particular case or is it? I realize with the whole Pussy Riot thing was blown way out of proportion but I would think that this sends a chill down the backs of every citizen in Russia today if it's true.
I didn't see in the article what the formal charges were, just "charged with complicity" socould she have helped some other organization and also, why didn't the prosecutors corroborate or refute the evidence she presented with another analysis of the poppy materials?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
She did LAB TESTS on i would assume a bunch of semi random samples of a shipment of Poppy Seeds and concluded that THIS SHIPMENT was so low in Drugs that this was not a DRUG shipment but a FOOD shipment. So the response of The Government is to JAIL HER for being "in on it". I would assume she had things like lab reports and such which were submitted as evidence and that Somebody Else has not done the same work and found different results (her "random" samples just "happened" to be Clean).
Comrades Put down the Vodka for a moment and THINK.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Seriously. The very language of the charge spells out the kind of justice that is being dished out: we say you are guilty, and the court is a formality. Don't question the ruling party comrade.
If her report showed that the defendant couldn't possibly have been importing poppyseeds for the manufacture of narcotics, due to the almost undetectable levels of the required compounds in the imported samples, then he should have been released, and charges dropped.
Claiming that she is complicit with drug smuggling means they found the defendant in the case she testifed for to be guilty anyway. Otherwise, how could she have been complicit in his "criminal importation operation"?
Seriously-- I thought this kind of shit ended with the cold war, and that Russia was trying its best to become a respectable member of the global community. Seriously... this shit is out of control.
Where you'll be arrested for resisting arrest.
George Lucas is in jail??!
GP's probably American cut him some slack. At least he got the hemisphere right...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
From the article it is evident that she made precise measurements with lab equipment and presented them in court.
Any of her colleagues could have repeated those measurements.
Why can't these people govern themselves without state thugs snatching people in the night?
I ask the same thing about America. When we imprison sick people and their care givers, what right do we have to lecture Russia?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
... all it takes is _one_ over-zealous persecutor. The other prosecutors might think it going too far, or might even be genuinely outraged. But what can they do? Charges are charges, and will grind through the pre-established system. She might [or might not] be able to "beat the rap", but no-where can a targetted individual "beat the ride".
One could say things about Russia's lack of tradition and understanding of basic human rights. But frankly I'm not convinced this matters much -- look at how rapidly the majority of Americans have accepted the appalling violations of the TSA.
One might say western judges have a greater sense of procedural necessities like attorney-client or judicial privilige. But judges have been ground down over the years by the stick of overturned-on-appeal and the carrot of higher appointments. Judges routinely accept any intelligent or independant juror being rejected, and AFAIK none will instruct a jury on their [still legal] nullification power. Even some of the USSC rulings are bizzarely in favor of govt (property seizure).
in soviet russia we miscarriage you!
As much as it clashes with both our "Russia is evil" and our "science is right" mindsets, there are some explanations that could justify this. I'm not saying they're actually what happened (indeed, "Russia is evil" is the simplest and most likely explanation), but someone more fluent in Russian than I can look at the actual documents and see.
First, suppose the expert is not actually an expert, just an accomplice of the traffickers posing as one to try to get out of the charges. Rather obvious conspiracy charges there.
But let's suppose the expert scientist is indeed both an expert and a scientist. But let's also suppose that some stronger evidence showed clear drug charges - for instance, finding actual drugs and video evidence of trafficking. This could mean the expert was simply incompetent, or was bought off. Either of those would be grounds for obstruction of justice, although probably not conspiracy (at least according to my limited knowledge of a different country's laws).
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go actually read the article.
state thugs snatching people in the night
We prefer the term extraordinary rendition.
Have gnu, will travel.
How about gruel-born double-standards?
I've been wondering what all this hysteria about Big Bad Russia is about for some time now. Surely Russia is no Shambhala, but the US is a veritable litigation shit-hole slaughterhouse. We, here in the U.S. of A., imprison more people than any other nation. We have a privatized prison-industry and trade virtual crime-futures on the stock-exchange. Closer and closer we are coming to a re-introduction of prison labor, all while a repugnantly large portion of incarcerated citizens live in cages for victimless crimes.
My advice to anyone itching to don the Good-Guy Badge and storm the palace of bacchanalian litigation, is to look no further if you are a US citizen. In no way do I suggest that pointing fingers at corruption is error; but we really do have some house-cleaning of our own to do -- and to recklessly embrace hypocrisy may not be wise.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
...seeds jail YOU.
No there isn't. You are a fool to even suggest there is. Assine laws enforced with procedure are no different that good/poor laws enforced without procedure. If I make it illegal to breathe but you still have due process when you are convicted you think that's better?
Both scenarios result in tremendous damage to truly innocent people. There isn't a such thing as less terrible when the result is destroying peoples lives. Oh don't worry George, you only lost 30 years of your life for an unjust law, but at least you weren't railroaded over a just law and lost 30 years, because that would just suck so much more.
They won WWI. Sure they had allies. So did Napoleon. The US had to buy military airplanes from the French back in WWI FYI.
You and many other posters here are amazingly naive. With all its shortcomings, the US justice system is perfect compared to the Russian one. The members of the "Pussy Riot" group have just been sentenced to 3 years in prison for chanting an anti-Putin slogan in the main cathedral in Moscow. Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been convicted twice for completely ridiculous charges, and has been in prison for 9 years. Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for a British firm operating in Moscow, uncovered massive tax fraud by Russian officials. He was the arrested for... wait for it... tax fraud, held without trial for almost a year, and conveniently died just days before the 1-year limit for which he could be held without trial was due to expire. It is highly unlikely that he has died from natural causes. These are just the recent high-profile cases that are known internationally. Beyond those there is incredible corruption at all levels, and complete disregard of the rule of law by the police and other officials.
Who did? Pussy Riot? The most they could have been charged with by anyone with a brain is disturbing the peace, which according to the Russian law is punishable by a 15-day detention. Instead they were charged with a religion-based hate crime, and given a very real 2-year prison sentence (my mistake, they got 2 years, the prosecutors were asking for 3). If you read the reports from their trial or from the trial of Khodorkovsky, you will be amazed at how ridiculous the chargers and the arguments of the prosecution are. Kafka could not have made it up. And Magnitsky's case in an a class by itself. I person was held without trial and killed in prison. The US congress is considering sanctions against Russian officials because of this case. There are countless examples of abuse of power by police and other officials happening in Russia every day. There have been cases when people have been run over by a government official or an official's family member, and it was the victims who were charged and prosecuted. If you care enough, read something besides /.
Here in America we jail people just for making bad movies!
The fact that we don't jail people for making bad movies is the reason that there have been riots around the Muslim world the past week. Many of the people in those countries just cannot comprehend that the government can do nothing about the film other then issuing statements.
The fact that we don't jail people for making bad movies is the reason that there have been riots around the Muslim world the past week.
We don't? That very filmmaker was arrested at midnight and hauled off to jail.
The riots were pre-planned, that movie was just a handy excuse to base them around.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I doubt it's a coincidence the French haven't won a war since the French Revolution (if you consider Napolean a continuation of the Revolution...)
These battles might be of interest to you arrogant Americans:
1758 Battle of Carillon (a.k.a. Battle of Ticonderoga)
General Montcalm and his vastly outnumbered French forces are victorious over the British.
1781 Battle of Yorktown
French forces, allied with the Americans, are victorious over Cornwallis and his English army.
1781 Battle of the Chesapeake - September 5th
France, coming the aid of America's George Washington, defeats the British in a strategic victory.
Without the French military you mock so, you wouldn't even have a country.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Naive? You act like you live in a country that hasn't jailed a potential presidential nominee under Bush's watch on extremely dubious grounds. Watch that video to get a feel for how many other prosecutions have been politically persued and you'll start understanding how corrupted your judiciary was under Bush and continues to be under Obama. Karl Rove, the guy primarily responsible for this politicisation is working for the president of Sweden which is JUST ONE of the many reasons so many are dubious about the prosecution of Assange.
People laughed at Bush. In my country (Australia) people laughed at Joh Bjelke-Petersen until he went from state to federal politics. Luckily he was outmaneuvered in a snap election, then prosecuted... and it was exposed how utterly corrupted the judiciary and virtually every department of government had been. His only mistake had been to stay in state politics long enough for the rest of the country to know how corrupt he was. People had laughted, but we in Australia could have conceivably become a dictatorship. That sounds extreme, but the state police were regularly used to monitor, beat and arrest political opposition, political boundaries were redrawn to bais elections etc... This was in AUSTRALIA... and yet people in other states laughed at the bumbling buffoon and felt smug and superior until their democracy was threatened. That was 30 years ago and has been more or less forgotten.
Your judiciary is quite corrupt, make no mistake.
The problem is that there were a number of case of extraordinary rendition where innocent people were kidnapped by the U.S. Government, taken to the middle east where they were tortured then eventually dumped someplace else or in some cases died of the torture process. One of the more popular cases was that of Maher Arar, a Canadian telecommunications engineer with dual citizenship in Canada and Syria whose only mistake was landing in the U.S. for a flight layover on his way back home. What followed would have made a great situation comedy if torture hadn't been involved. The U.S. is stonewalling these cases to this day. There are so many horror stories the case of Aafia Siddiqui is so terrible, it made me nauseous reading it. I think the person the GP may be speaking of was the subject of a 60 Minutes segment. He was a University Professor (and was himself an immigrant from the Middle East) at a major school in New England and had posted flyer to get students together to discuss what the Government was doing and whether it served our culture to abandon the Geneva Convention. The result is that he himself was kidnapped and in an act of extraordinary rendition spent the next 18 months as a guest of the U.S. Government seeing a number of fascinating torture facilities in the middle east. His abuse was severe and the damage to his body and his mind permanent. Eventually he was dumped naked and found his way to Canada where he and his family now live. The US claims no knowledge of what happened to him.
There's a great book about rendition by a former CIA agent, and what he says basically is that the people who pushed this insanity through knew nothing about interrogation or intelligence, and that their choice to ignore the Geneva Convention damaged us far more than any attack from the outside ever could.
I doubt it's a coincidence the French haven't won a war since the French Revolution (if you consider Napolean a continuation of the Revolution...)
These battles might be of interest to you arrogant Americans:
1758 Battle of Carillon (a.k.a. Battle of Ticonderoga) General Montcalm and his vastly outnumbered French forces are victorious over the British.
1781 Battle of Yorktown French forces, allied with the Americans, are victorious over Cornwallis and his English army.
1781 Battle of the Chesapeake - September 5th France, coming the aid of America's George Washington, defeats the British in a strategic victory.
You were going for a "funny" upmod, weren't you!
All those battles were before the French Revolution, which was 1789-1799. They are hardly contradictions of his somewhat tongue-in-cheek assertion. Moreover, they were battles, while his assertion was for wars. FWIW, I'm not an American, either.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Who the hell do these Russians think they are?
The United States?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It wasn't supposed to be a contradiction, it was supposed to be educational. Of course I'm aware those battles were fought before the French revolution. That's not the point. The point is that the military the Americans are so fond of mocking is the one that helped them create their very nation.
Mention Ticonderoga, Yorktown, or Chesapeake to any American military buff and they'll get something proud and patriotic in their eyes - but it was really the French that carried those victories. That's something they choose to forget - hence the "arrogant" part of my post.
Some further tidbits about the French military:
Of 125 major European wars since 1495, the French have fought in 50, more than Austria (47) or England (43).
Out of a total 168 battles they've fought since 387BC, they won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10.
That's quite the record, wouldn't you say?
FWIW, I'm neither French nor American. I'm just tired of the chest-pounding, the short memories, and the ungratefulness of it.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley