SIXTY-TWO
The trial loomed.
Media coverage beforehand was excessive. Not just in State-controlled Russian outlets, but around the world. Speculation was rife. Pictures of the aftermath of the crash at the Grand Prix were again being shown in never-ending loops on the television news, while the faces of the thirty-four who had been killed had been composited into a mosaic. That visual representation of the human losses had become a form of logo – and a constant reminder of the accident.
Then a carefully timed announcement caused a further media blowout.
It was made on the Friday afternoon, before the trial was due to start on the following Monday; it contained two major developments in the format of the hearing.
It announced that not only was Léon Gazdanov, the prosecutor general, responsible for having compiled the case against Ptarmigan and the two accused, but that for the trial he would also act as the state's advokatura, the prosecuting barrister.
The second element of the announcement implied that this case was almost completely cut and dried: the prosecutor general had decided to have the trial heard by a panel of three judges, rather than by a jury – an option within the prerogative of the Supreme Court.
The media went into a feeding frenzy.
Editorial after op-ed discussed the prosecutor general's decision to dispense with a jury, particularly when a jury was considered far more likely to side with the prosecution – wanting to see an avenging of the deaths at the Grand Prix. Opinion had it that if Gazdanov was prepared to forego such an advantage, as well as put his name to the advocacy in the trial, the prosecution's case had to be utterly watertight.
An opposing view, only expressed in the international media, was that dispensing with the jury left the entire outcome in the hands of two or three judges, who would be far more susceptible to the influence of “telephone justice”.
At nine o’clock on the Monday morning, Léon Gazdanov, accompanied by Police Colonel Pudovkin, arrived at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in Povarskaya Ulitsa. On the pavement outside they were received by the clerk of the building. Huge crowds had gathered, standing behind a funnel of crash barriers.
Gazdanov, wearing his bright blue uniform with gold flashes and brass buttons, spotted the bank of television cameras and couldn’t resist walking over to make a statement.
‘The Russian legal system will, today, start the process of setting out the truth about the deaths of our beloved citizens. I will have the people responsible for this tragedy behind bars – and starting their periods of hard labour, within a week. Thank you.’
The clerk then escorted him and Pudovkin into the building.
As they entered the courtroom, Gazdanov realized, instantly, that he had taken quite the right decision. This setting was definitely the place to hold a high-profile trial. It had all the attributes of a magnificent stage upon which this drama should be played out. Red oak panelling covered the walls. A row of seats – thrones – formed an imposing line at the front of the room where the presiding Supreme Court justices would sit. In front of them an open floor space extended forward to the first row of concentric hemispherical seats which radiated outwards and slightly upwards to the back of the room. As in his own office, Gazdanov gloried in the double-headed eagle emblem on the wall above the judges’ heads. That crest gave this space a feeling of unchallengeable authority.
Gazdanov had ordered specifc alterations to this room for the trial. One was that most cases before the Supreme Court were for review only, rather than their being heard in the first instance; there was, therefore, no need for permanent boxes for the jury or for witnesses. For the sake of this trial, Gazdanov had arranged a temporary witness box to be brought in.
The second departure stemmed from the absence of dedicated seats for the accused and their police escort. For today, this had been rectified with an addition that Gazdanov relished: a ten by six foot grille had been installed to the left of the judge's row. He had ordered that the accused would sit inside this cage. Seeing the accused already behind bars would project an impression that Gazdanov savoured, knowing it could only help his cause.
The third departure for the Supreme Court was the presence he had granted to the media and press to cover the trial, never normally allowed anywhere near this rarefied judicial body. Gazdanov's permission had resulted in an unbroken row of television cameras lined up along the right-hand wall of the courtroom. His locating them there was going to offer – all within the same camera shot – a clear line of sight across the room to the judges, the accused in their cage and of him at his table. When broadcast around Russia, it would project a powerful message of law and order, showing him centre stage as the law-enforcer-in-chief.
An hour later, the Supreme Court was packed.
Standing room only.
Pudovkin, sitting one row back from the prosecutor general, couldn’t help but feel a tingle of excitement.
Gazdanov gave the signal to begin.
An announcement was called out. Everyone in the courtroom was ordered to stand and be silent. Through a set of doors at the front of the courtroom, three justices of the Supreme Court appeared in simple black gowns, along with several men and women in attendance.
Pudovkin watched the three elderly men take the middle three seats in the row of thrones at the front of the room. As they lowered themselves into their chairs, the other people in the room were invited to sit.
Léon Gazdanov remained on his feet.
Pudovkin watched the room focus its attention on the prosecutor general. Adding to his stage presence, Gazdanov was – today – sporting a pair of reading glasses, which, worn while he was about to address the bench, were clearly for show.
‘Justices of the Supreme Court,’ he announced in his nasal voice, ‘I, as prosecutor general of the Russian Federation, bring before you a case the country is anxious to see punished. I am here – as I would say we all are – to represent thirty-four of our citizens who can no longer speak for themselves. We are here to do justice for them. It is my job to present to you, sirs, with incontrovertible evidence, that one company and two individuals are responsible for these deaths. With your justices’ permission, I will start by summoning the accused.’
In response, the middle judge nodded.
Another announcement echoed around the courtroom, calling for the prisoners.
‘Mr Tahm Nazar. Ms Remy Sabatino.’
A few moments later the Ptarmigan officials were escorted into the room. Nazar, shuffling in, was chained at the wrist and ankles. Behind him, Sabatino was being pushed in a wheelchair; she was still wearing the halo brace, while her left arm and leg remained in plaster. Nazar was manhandled into the steel cage. Then one of the police officers manoeuvred Sabatino's chair within its small space. A clang was heard as the metal door was shut and locked.
‘Mr Justices, the accused are represented in this trial by the solicitors Brandeis Gertner, and their appointed advokat, Mr Oscar Brogan QC, from the United Kingdom.’
Pudovkin didn’t know anything about the British barrister.
He looked across and studied the tall bewigged and begowned figure.
Brogan, he saw, had long silver hair under the wig, but he thought any suggestion of age was instantly dispelled by the force in his eyes. They seemed to take everything in, even though his facial expression conveyed an attitude of being noticeably unimpressed. Beside Brogan was the harridan woman who had humiliated Pudovkin in front of his own men when he tried to impound the Ptarmigan motor home. Sandy McMahon was dressed in a dark trouser suit with a white shirt. Her pale red hair was wound into a neat swirl behind her head. Pudovkin could not deny that the woman had a striking and authoritative presence.
As he looked at her, the police colonel suddenly thought of her accomplice. Where was Straker?
What the hell was he up to now?
Looking back at the justices while the defence team was introduced, Pudovkin saw them offer perfunctory courtesy to Brogan and McMahon before turning back to face the prosecutor general.
‘I, as the prosecution,’ declared Gazdanov, ‘will prove to this court and the Russian people that Ms Sabatino's crash – at the Russian Grand Prix on the twenty-third of July this year – was completely avoidable. I will prove, with the help of a member of the very same team that caused the crash, that the manoeuvre she was attempting was reckless, if not dangerous. Moreover, this was a manoeuvre she had been reprimanded for by the sport's governing body only last month. I will therefore prove to your justices’ satisfaction that the blame for the thirty-four deaths rests entirely with Ptarmigan, with Mr Nazar as the controlling mind of this organization and with Ms Sabatino, whose own recklessness directly caused the crash.’
Pudovkin, as the police officer responsible for compiling the evidence for the trial, allowed himself a moment's satisfaction as the robustness of the case was outlined. But Oscar Brogan, Ptarmigan's defence counsel, was soon on his feet.
