Russian Investigative Committee says with confidence that nationalist Martsinkevich killed himself
MOSCOW. Sept 17 (Interfax) - The picture of circumstances surrounding the death of nationalist Maxim Martsinkevich in a Chelyabinsk detention center, including his suicide notes, evidences that he committed suicide, spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee Svetlana Petrenko said.
"As part of the procedural scrutiny, one can say with confidence that Martsinkevich left suicide notes and committed suicide," Petrenko said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Thursday.
"He had a very serious motive to kill himself. You know that he was earlier sentenced for 10 years. According to his calculations, he should have been released on parole in a couple of years. Such were his expectations. But the situation changed," Petrenko said.
The Investigative Committee spokesperson recalled that a criminal case was opened in 2007 after a video featuring a murder of two individuals of non-Slavic origin had been published.
"After that, an initial inquiry was halted due to the failure to identify a criminally liable person. In the course of investigative activities with no connection to the circumstances of that case, a convict with nationalistic views serving time in a Krasnoyarsk Territory penal colony testified about Martsinkevich's involvement in that double murder," she said.
When investigators checked the information, Martsinkevich's involvement was confirmed, she said.
"Moreover, Martsinkevich himself contributed to the determination of circumstances of crimes and was ready to disclose the place where the bodies of the victims had been buried to the investigation. Therefore, his transfer to Moscow was initiated to verify the information and check the testimony by way of discovering the place where the murdered individuals were buried," she said.
According to the Investigative Committee, Martsinkevich revealed at one point that "he had begun to kill people visiting Moscow when he was 19 years old."
"This is what he revealed during an absolutely trusting and calm conversation with an investigator. We have all the records. On the videos, he is absolutely remorseful and condemns his own acts committed in the past, when he was adherent to nationalistic views," Petrenko said.
That is exactly why the nationalist "decided to tell about crimes he was involved in other than the 2007 murder. In particular, he provided a detailed description of the circumstances of another double homicide, of which law enforcement agencies knew nothing, and outlined the place where the victims were buried," she said.
"Based on that information, investigators searched the locality to discover remains of the crime victims," she said.
The murders that Martsinkevich committed in 2007 were also recorded by him and his friends on video and then posted on the Internet.
"We won't give any comment on this criminal case at this point. But I reiterate that Martsinkevich was actively cooperating with the investigation and making confessions. It is possible that he actually wasn't able to live with the notion of the heavy burden and meaninglessness of the especially grave crimes that he had committed and with the inevitability of another lengthy, possibly lifelong, incarceration he was facing," she said.
The investigators have yet to restore the whole picture and assess, from legal standpoint, the actions or a failure to act on the part of detention center employees, Petrenko said.
As reported earlier, Martsinkevich's body was found in a cell at the Chelyabinsk region's Detention Facility No. 3 on Wednesday morning. Suicide notes were found at the scene of the incident.
Martsinkevich's attorneys have turned to the Russian Investigative Committee head, Alexander Bastrykin, asking him to open a criminal case.
The Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Martsinkevich to ten years in a maximum-security penal colony on December 29, 2018. He was found guilty of banditry and hooliganism.
Martsinkevich was convicted of extremist crimes three times previously.
