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Prosecution seeks guilty verdict for Moscow riot case defendants

"I believe the defendants' guilt is proven at the trial," the prosecutor for the state said

© ITAR-TASS/Zurab Dzhavakhadze

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Court to hear parties' arguments in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square riot case

MOSCOW, January 22. /ITAR-TASS/. Prosecution is insisting on a guilty verdict for the defendants in the case over the riot in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square in May 2012.

"I believe the defendants' guilt is proven at the trial," the prosecutor for the state said during the arguments of the parties at Moscow's Zamoskvorechye court on Wednesday.

The defendants, Stepan Zimin, Alexei Polikhovich, Artem Savelov, Denis Lutskevich, Sergei Krivov, Yaroslav Belousov, Andrei Barabanov and Alexandra Dukharina /Naumova/, are accused of rioting and using violence against police on duty.

Taking part in the trial are several prosecutors who insisted on calling the unrest on Bolotnaya Square "mass disturbances" and claiming that it was proven by case materials. The witnesses' claims to the contrary are biased as they themselves might have been involved, the prosecutors said.

They also said that before the May 6, 2012 rally escalated to clashes with police, part of the participants withdrew from the scene as they were aware that illegal actions had begun. "This disproves the defendants' claim that it was impossible to walk away from the square," a prosecutor said.

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