Grigoriy Pasko

A military journalist for the newspaper Boyevaya Vakhta. He focused on issues of corruption in the Navy, environmental protection, and radiation safety. He travelled to Japan on assignments and maintained contact with foreign journalists. Throughout the 1990s, he was under surveillance by the security services.

In 1997, he was accused of spying for Japan and arrested. Even before the verdict was announced, Amnesty International declared Grigory Mikhailovich a prisoner of conscience. In 2001, he was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to four years in a strict-regime penal colony. He was released early on 23 January 2003.

2020s

Journalists Treason cases

Reading time: 5 minutes

The Final Statement

‘Some false patriots accused me of not loving my homeland, sincerely confusing the homeland with the state. I love my homeland, but I love the truth even more. And the truth is that one must be honest. Especially as a journalist. As a journalist, I did everything I could, in my view, to remain truthful. I preferred to criticise my homeland rather than deceive it.’

Your Honour,

The law grants me the right to make a final statement. I must admit that there is no particular need for one. For what can an INNOCENT person possibly say in their own defence?

The trial that has just concluded, like the previous one, has convincingly demonstrated the complete absence of any guilt on my part. To refuse to acknowledge this is to lie: to ourselves, to our conscience, and to all people.

In this trial, as in the previous one, I was forced to prove my innocence because the prosecution was unable to prove my guilt–and in the second trial, did not even attempt to do so. The reason is obvious: there is no guilt.

Much has already been said about the legal groundlessness of the charges brought against me, the numerous violations of the law committed by officers of the Pacific Fleet Directorate of the Federal Security Service (FSB), with the tacit consent of the Pacific Fleet Military Prosecutor’s Office, and the falsification and fabrication of evidence in this disgraceful case for Russia. An intelligent and honest lawyer acting as an arbiter could determine the outcome of this legal contest as follows: the defendant must be acquitted due to the absence of the constituent elements of a crime, while at the very least a separate judicial ruling should be issued against those who initiated criminal proceedings against a person they knew to be innocent. In fact, they belong in the dock themselves.

I will not discuss the legal aspects of the case. My defence lawyers have already done an outstanding job of that.

I will speak about the feelings of an innocent man who has been tormented for four years by a handful of scoundrels. Perhaps they would not even deserve to be mentioned if they were not supported by the state–that monstrous, cumbersome, deaf and blind creature. But in this case, the monster is not some nameless, faceless abomination. It is a collection of very real people, each with a specific surname and rank. I hope that, in reaching its decision, the court will give due consideration to the lawlessness they have perpetrated by initiating and obsessively pursuing these criminal proceedings.

I was accused of collaborating with Japanese journalists. Under Russian law, there was nothing illegal about this cooperation. Nevertheless, just as in 1937, the FSB authorities treated contacts with foreigners as espionage. This is an expression of spy mania, which has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the interests of the state.

The prosecution stubbornly tried to accuse me of causing damage to the state, without presenting a single piece of evidence. Meanwhile, scholars, professors and academics whose authority is recognised throughout the world concluded that my publications had helped attract more than 50 million US dollars in aid to Russia. At the same time, it is not difficult to calculate the actual damage inflicted on the state by the Pacific Fleet Directorate of the FSB, prosecutors’ offices and others, who spent a prolonged period living off taxpayers’ money while defending not the security of the homeland, but the notorious honour of a dirty uniform.

Some false patriots accused me of not loving my homeland, sincerely confusing the homeland with the state. I love my homeland, but I love the truth even more. And the truth is that one must be honest. Especially as a journalist. As a journalist, I did everything I could, in my view, to remain truthful. I preferred to criticise my homeland rather than deceive it.

It was the hatred of truth that gave rise to these criminal proceedings. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the people responsible for this disgrace surrounded not only the case materials but the entire trial itself with such an abundance of lies. Our state is mired in deception on an enormous scale. And this criminal case is one manifestation of it. Moreover, the state itself stands at the head of this deception. Honest journalists are not needed by such a state. What it needs are flatterers and scoundrels, not only among journalists, but also in prosecutors’ offices and the KGB, in courts and prisons, in mayors’ offices and legislative assemblies. It needs lackeys who believe that, for the sake of one Great Lie, hundreds, thousands, even millions of innocent people can be senselessly and needlessly destroyed.

There is only one hope: the creation of a civil society in which an independent judiciary can emerge. A judiciary that will not be an integral part of the State’s Great Lie, nor its accomplice in judicial robes, but one that recognises its duty to adhere strictly to the law, preserve its civic courage and maintain its human dignity.

In this case, society has already had its say, and that verdict is in my favour.

What will the court say? I do not know. I can only surmise that the court is aware of at least two things: first, that I am innocent; and second, that I will not accept handouts in the form of compromises.

18 December 2001
Pacific Fleet Military Court, Vladivostok, Russia
Source: Bellona Environmental Transparency Center
More about the case: Kommersant
Photo: Index of Censorship