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One would expect a classified investigation when the case concerns, for example, state secrets. The court proceedings would be classified too. But if the entire investigation and all the preparations for the trial are carried out in the open only for the case to be declared secret upon entry into the courtroom - that can only be down to official fear. Of being caught out.
For a long time the defence tried to find out who had classified a routine provincial and absolutely not military murder case. It asked to see the orders, if only to find out who had drawn them up. In vain. It then suggested hearing the case in open court but going in camera when secret documents or evidence was examined. Again, in vain.
The reason why the authorities chose this course is clear. It was to exclude the media and the public from the trial, so that nobody saw the kind of "proof" that the prosecution rested on. Otherwise, the defence would not have to draw any inferences - the documents would speak for themselves.
The prosecution said that the case contained classified information about operational and detective work. Perhaps so. But these were secrets about incompetence and prejudice that in places spilled over into falsification. Here are a few examples of such "secret" documents.
The file contains a letter to the Interior Ministry asking for operational resources to be used to check various crime scenarios. Classified, naturally. This is laughable. Such letters are sent out by the thousand by ordinary post. A request to follow up a lead can be confidential at the investigation stage, by the time it gets to court everything should already have been followed up and confirmed or rejected. Why the need for secrecy?
Then comes the classified reply: "In response to your instruction No ... we can report that scenario 1 is unconfirmed, scenario 2 is unconfirmed, scenario 3 is unconfirmed." It does not say, even briefly, why they are unconfirmed. This, I am convinced, is the first thing we need to look at. Never mind it being classified or not. Here we see how squalid is the machinery of repression, stripped of its veneer of secrecy.
How can anyone in their right mind claim that sentences like these are secret? "Not possible through operational information to establish Dedova's complicity in the crime." "No operational resources available to establish complicity of Algoritm depositors in abduction of Gorins." And finally, this masterpiece of officialese: "Established through operational information that person with interest in Gorins' murder was Pichugin." Judging from the level of classification, the state thought there was something very secret in that sentence. As before, exactly what "operational information" means is not disclosed.
Anyone examining the case in the future, and the time for that will surely come in Russia, is bound to smile when they read this classified letter to the deputy minister of internal affairs: "The Procuracy General requested that you provide an officer to work on the case ... At the time of writing, no officer has been seconded. Please report." The stamp at the top says "Secret".
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