The Moscow City Court on Tuesday will begin the trial of the 20-year-old Muscovite Alexander Koptsev

Friday, August 7, 2020

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The Moscow City Court on Tuesday will begin the trial of the 20-year-old Muscovite Alexander Koptsev who is accused of staging an attack on the city’s synagogue congregation. Head of the court's press service Anna Usachyova told Itar-Tass the preliminary hearings to set the date for the beginning of the trial on the merits would be held behind closed doors. The court at its meeting will also decide if the trial will be held by jury or without jury. In early February the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office completed the investigation of the criminal case against Koptsev who on January 11 stabbed with a knife nine people in the synagogue in Bolshaya Bronnaya Street. He is accused under two articles of the Criminal Code – ‘attempted murder of two or more persons out of national and religious hatred” and “taking actions aimed at inciting hatred and animosity and humiliation of human dignity with the use of violence.” If found guilty, Koptsev is facing life imprisonment. According to a version of the investigation, the young man acted without accomplices and nobody solicited him to the crime. The defendant was raised in a good family, used no alcohol or drugs and was not registered in psychiatric or detoxication clinics. A forensic psychological-psychiatric expert examination found that Koptsev has a typical schizophrenic disorder. However, according to experts, he was sane when he was committing the crime. The defendant is not a member of any nationalistic groups, but during a search police found extremist literature at his place

Bookmark The Moscow City Court on Tuesday will begin the trial of the 20-year-old Muscovite Alexander Koptsev