Daniel Semenov's Comment

Today, I was at the interrogation of Sasha Skochilenko’s mother, as her representative, in the Investigative department for the Vasileostrovskiy district of the Main Investigative Committee of St. Petersburg.

My general impressions of the interrogation are as follows: the investigator did not try to ask any questions that did not concern Sasha directly. As for the ones that concern her directly… her mother has the legal right to refuse to answer them under the Article 51 of the Constitution, which she used.

Usually, in such cases, investigators try to ask somewhat different questions, for example, not directly related to the defendant and thus try to get some information from witnesses. It was not the case here. Right after entering the installation data into the protocol, we issued a refusal to testify according to Article 51 of the Constitution, for the reason that the criminal case is being carried out against a close relative—namely, the daughter of the witness. And then there were no attempts on the part of the investigator—formally or informally—to somehow find out any more information.

Another interesting point. Sasha's mother asked him a question: would they call her to the investigation department again? To which the investigator replied: in the current situation, in connection with what is happening, everything is very unpredictable: he does not make these decisions; they are not even made at the level of the investigative department; it's one thing when we deal with ordinary criminal cases, and it's another when it is this kind of case, so he can't say for sure. But, in general, I can say that the impression is that at the moment, they needed the interrogation of Sasha's mother here for some kind of "checkmark." What happens next is unpredictable.

04/16/2022