Polyakova Larisa

Judge of the Moscow City Court.

POLYAKOVA, Larisa Fedorovna received the position of district judge by decree of the President of the Russian Federation of September 11, 1998, and by decree of the President of November 30, 2002, she was appointed a criminal judge of the Moscow City Court. He is the chairman of the 7th judicial composition of the judicial board for criminal cases of the Moscow City Court.

Carrying out political repressions using her official position.

Judge Polyakova repeatedly participated in the implementation of political repressions and giving politically motivated sentences to opposition members. She took part in the Yukos case in 2010, the Bolotnaya Square case in 2012-2014, the persecution of Pussy Riot in 2012, and also in the Moscow Case in 2019.

In May 2010, a board of judges of the Moscow City Court, chaired by Judge Larisa Polyakova, dismissed the complaint about a three-month extension to the ex-head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the former head of the Menatep Group Platon Lebedev. It was done despite amendments that had been proposed and signed by then-President Medvedev to prohibit arrest of the accused in economic crimes until guilt is proven by the court.

From June 2012 to July 2013, Judge Polyakova took part in the Bolotnaya Square case, the criminal prosecution of the participants of the opposition rally on May 6, 2012, that ended up in clashes due to the orchestrated police provocation. As the chairman of the board of the Moscow City Court, in literally identical wordings, she rejected the cassation complaints about the arrest of defendants in the case: Maxim Luzyanin, Andrei Barabanov (three times), Alexei Polykhovich (four times), Denis Lutskevich (three times), Nikolai Kavkazsky (four times), Artyom Savelov (three times), Vladimir Akimenkov (twice), Stepan Zimin (twice), Mikhail Kosenko, Yaroslav Belousov (twice), Leonid Kovyazin, Sergey Krivov (twice), Leonid Razvozzhaev (accused of preparing for the riots and robbery in 1997), Ilya Gushchin (twice) ), Sergei Udaltsov (twice), Alexander Margolin (twice), Dmitry Rukavishnikov. Besides, she rejected other complaints by the accused and their lawyers in the process.

On October 10, 2012, she upheld the sentence of two years in prison for the members of the Pussy Riot punk band Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina. All the women were charged under Part 2 of Art. 213 (“hooliganism motivated by hatred and enmity, by preliminary conspiracy group”) for dancing in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Judge Polyakova also took part in the Moscow Case, the criminal prosecution of protesters against the prohibition of independent candidates from running in elections to the Moscow City Duma in the summer of 2019. So, on August 19, 2019, she rejected the appeal of the decision to arrest Sergei Fomin, a volunteer of the candidate Lyubov Sobol.

It is noteworthy that Judge Polyakova is far more humane towards corrupt officials and wealthy defendants than to political activists. In December 2013, she canceled the absentee arrest of the ex-senator from Tuva, the beneficiary of the bankrupt Mezhprombank, Sergei Pugachev, accused of organizing the misappropriation and embezzlement of another's property. Thanks to Judge Polyakova, Pugachev was able to freely leave the country. In February 2016, she released on house arrest the former head of the Russian office of the Airport Management Company Limited, Svetlana Trishina, accused of providing services that did not meet the safety requirements and led to the terrorist attack in the Domodedovo Airport.