MOSCOW, April 19 (RAPSI, Vladimir Yaduta) – European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) based in Strasbourg made public its judgement on the case of five members of a gang allegedly led by Yuriy Shutov, a former St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputy, on Tuesday. The Court found that only one applicant suffered violation of his rights and ruled to pay him compensation in amount of about 8.5 thousand euros.

The applicants, Sergey Denisov, Ayrat Gimranov, Dmitriy Filimonov, Aleksey Dodonov and Yuriy Shutov (now deceased), lodged with the Court complaints with regard to violation of their rights guaranteed by Article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on the grounds that their right to a fair trial had been violated in Russia.

All the applicants were arrested in 1999, except for Filimonov who was arrested in 2001, on suspicion of participating in a number of serious crimes as members of a criminal gang allegedly led by one of the applicants, Shutov. They were placed in pre-trial detention on the basis of the seriousness of the charges against them. The domestic authorities then repeatedly extended their detention on the same grounds. In February 2006 the applicants were convicted of multiple counts of organizing a criminal group, murder and assault, preparing explosive devices and unlawfully storing and carrying firearms. Denisov, Gimranov and Shutov were sentenced to life imprisonment and Filimonov and Dodonov received sentences of nine and 18 years, respectively. Their conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Russia in November 2006.

All five applicants complained in particular about the composition of the court that examined their cases and the excessive length – approximately seven years and nine months for four of the applicants and five years and eight months for Filimonov – of the proceedings against them. Although ECHR ruled that there were no violations as concerned this component of complaints, it held that Denisov’s rights were violated under Article 5 § 3 of the Convention on account of unreasonable length of his pre-trial detention, whereas his complaint about the conditions – notably on account of overcrowding – was dismissed.

The Court ruled to pay Denisov compensation amounting to about 8.5 thousand euros.

Yuriy Shutov, a former deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly and an adviser to Anatoly Sobchak, died in the Perm penal colony “Belyi Lebed” (White Swan) in December 2014. He was accused of orchestrating criminal gang activities and organizing the murder of Igor Dubovik, an adviser to St. Petersburg Governor; Dmitry Filippov, Chairman of the board of directors of ZAO “Bank MENATEP St. Petersburg” and Tobolsk fuel and petrochemical refinery; businessman Dmitry Timokhin; and a gang member. Courts dismissed a number of other high-profile cases allegedly involving gang members. After Shutov’s death he was represented in ECHR by his wife.