Kirill Serebrennikov: Prosecutors seek 6-year prison sentence for Russian director

In closing arguments on Monday, state prosecutors asked a Moscow court to sentence the prominent film and theatre director Kirill Serebrennikov to six years in a corrective labour colony – a judgment that would likely put the Kremlin at loggerheads with many in its own ranks as well as with the wider cultural elite.

The director is one of four people who stand accused of defrauding the state over grants awarded to develop experimental theatre in 2010. Mr Serebrennikov and his co-defendants have emphatically denied the charges, and their trial is seen by many to be politically motivated.

Besides six years on a prison colony for Mr Serebrennikov, the state also recommended fines and multi-year custodial sentences to theatre manager Alexey Malobrodsky, former culture ministry official Sofia Apfelbaum and producer Yury Itin.

Mr Serebrennikov is widely understood to be the only focus of the trial. The director is lauded at home and abroad for his ground- and taboo-breaking film and theatre. But that same body of work, which touches on homosexuality and protest, has also created powerful enemies within the conservative wings of Russia’s political elite.

But even if the director has enemies in the government, he also has influential supporters there too. Two of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies – spokesman Dmitry Peskov and former deputy prime minister Aleksei Kudrin – have offered public statements of support.

The apparent disagreement at the top seems to be the likely reason why house arrests were relaxed to no-travel orders in April last year. For the defendants, it also offers the greatest hope that a court could issue non-custodial sentences. An acquittal remains unlikely given that less than 0.1 per cent of all trials that reach court in Russia end this way.

During eighteen months of stop-start proceedings, the accusations against the group have occasionally bordered on the absurd.

The defendants were initially accused of taking money for a play that was never performed. When it was pointed out that the play not only ran but received awards, the prosecution then changed charges to other alleged irregularities.

The amount prosecutors claim the defendants embezzled over 2011-2014 has also changed on several occasions: first 216 million roubles, then 133 million roubles. The latest figure is 129 million roubles (£1.5m).

The prosecution has largely based its case on incriminatory oral evidence provided by Nina Maslyayeva, the group’s former accountant. Yet there are problems here too. Many believe the elderly accountant has been blackmailed into giving the testimony. She has a previous conviction for fraud and has several serious health conditions obviously incompatible with prison. An assistant to Ms Maslyayeva last week told the court she witnessed state investigators applying “severe pressure” on the accountant.

More than 3,000 cultural leaders have written a letter to the cultural minister Olga Lyubimova, asking that her ministry drop the case against the defendants. But with a decision scheduled within the next 10 days, time is running out.

Early on in the case, Vladimir Putin raised hopes by describing the prosecutors pushing the case as “fools”. But he has since modified his position. On Monday his spokesman Dmitry Peskov ruled out an intervention.

“The president has no right to interfere with the work of the investigating authorities,” he said. “And he never does so.”