One of Yashin’s fellow oppositionists from the Solidarity movement, Mikhail Maglov, was in the courtroom when the verdict was read. He told Kasparov.ru that Judge Svetlana Ukhnaleva saw no reason not to believe police officers’ testimony that Yashin violated the law.

At the same time, said Maglov, the judge chose to ignore the testimony of Police Sergeant Artem Charukhin, who told the court last week that he had falsified a police report about Yashin. She chose to ignore it because “he did not feel well in court and his testimony contradicts other evidence,” Maglov said. The judge did accept his police report – the same one Charukhin said he falsified, before later recanting – as legitimate evidence, since “it was drafted directly after [Yashin’s] detention and corresponds with other evidence,” said Maglov.

The judge did not take into account evidence from witnesses for the defense, alleging bias, and also ignored video evidence showing that Yashin did not resist police when he was detained – the charge he was convicted of. According to Maglov, the judge said the video was dark since it was filmed at night and that it was impossible to see what was going on.

Maglov told Kasparov.ru that Yashin planned to appeal the decision in Moscow City Court and also file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.

On his blog, Yashin described the court session on Thursday that preceded Friday’s verdict as Kafkaesque: “It has already become banal to compare Russian courts with Kafka’s The Trial. But it’s hard to pick a different comparison – it was a disgraceful tragicomedy with elements of blatant insanity and mockery of common sense.” His entire account of the trial’s final hearing can be read in Russian here.

Awkwardly, after Friday’s verdict was announced, Sergeant Charukhin was found in a police car outside the court, having apparentlk slept through the entire reading (click here for video).

Last Friday, Charukhin admitted in court that he had falsified a police report that was used as evidence to convict Yashin to five days in jail following a December 31 rally in Moscow. Then, according to Kasparov.ru, Moscow City Police Spokesman Viktor Biryukov announced on Tuesday that Charukhin was being fired for making contradictory statements in court that raised doubt among his colleagues, and for avoiding his superiors. In response, Yashin’s opposition movement, Solidarity, offered Charukhin legal counsel to defend his labor rights. That same day, Anton Tsvetkov, a member of the Public Council on the Moscow City Police and representative of the foundation Officers of Russia, said it was possible that Yashin could have been paid off to change his testimony. It was unclear who he meant would have done the paying off. He did, however, accuse oppositionists in general of only holding unsanctioned rallies only to create photo opportunities.

Now, Kasparov.ru is reporting that Charukhin has changed his testimony yet again. On Wednesday, a video clip of Charukhin being interviewed by an unknown woman was posted on the website of Moscow’s police headquarters at Petrovka 38. The interviewer poses a series of (mostly leading) questions in which the officer claims he only recanted in the first place because of pressure from Yashin and his lawyer.

In the video, Charukhin says he was very worried prior to Friday’s court session. Once in court, he says, Yashin began to ask him whether or not he believed in God, showed him quotes from the Bible “not to bear false witness,” and showed him the part of the Russian Criminal Code that punishes false testimony. Charukhin says Yashin and his lawyer both asked him questions, none of which he understood and saw as “sneaky tricks.” In result, he became distressed, ceased to understand the essence of the questions, and, as the interviewer puts it, began to say “whatever came into my head.”

Charukhin says he “did not say what I was thinking” in court.

After court, the officer went on, he began getting phone calls from the BBC and Citi-FM radio asking him to read a statement they had written for him on the air. This statement would claim he actually didn’t work at all on December 31, was not on Triumfalnaya Square that night and did not participate in Yashin’s detention at all. Charukhin says he refused the requests.

In addition to the video, the Petrovka 38 website also posted a scan of a new report signed by Charukhin, in which he states the same claims as in the video. Anticipating the obvious, the police added a statement saying that Charukhin filed this new report, which is dated February 8, 2011, before it was announced that he was being fired – thus removing the possibility that the new statement was written under pressure.

To make things even more complicated, Moscow Police Chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Ekho Moskvy on February 9 that Charukhin hadn’t been fired at all: “I didn’t fire him.” Kolokoltsev said he was looking further into the matter.

Regardless of Charukhin’s testimony, it remains apparent that the charge that Yashin was convicted of – pushing police officers away from fellow oppositionist Boris Nemtsov – was impossible, given video evidence reviewed in court on Friday indicating that Yashin was arrested before Nemtsov was.

The trial resumes on February 10. On his blog, Yashin says he has proof of Charukhin’s claim that a superior officer had dictated his falsified police report. He intends to present this proof in court.

Update 02/09/11: Charukhin has recanted his testimony and Yashin says he’s planning to present evidence proving his innocence. Read the update here.

The police officer who detained Russian oppositionist Ilya Yashin during a recent Strategy 31 rally has admitted that he falsified the report detailing the arrest, Novaya Gazeta reports.

On February 4, Moscow’s Tverskoy Regional Court held a second hearing on Yashin’s complaint about the verdict that sentenced him to 5 days of administrative arrest following the December 31 rally. During the hearing, police officer Artem Charukhin said he was given the oppositionist by an OMON riot police officer, who was “particularly violent” when “nearly shoving” him into a police bus.

When asked whether Charukhin participated in Yashin’s actual detention or whether he saw how fellow opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was detained, he said no – contradicting his own notes in the police report that Yashin was convicted on.

The report reads: “On December 31 at 20:50 hours I was together with Kondrashov. This is when Nemtsov was detained. Citizen Yashin was together with Nemtsov. During Nemtsov’s detention, Yashin actively resisted; he pushed me and Police Sergeant Kondrashov away from Nemtsov; he did not respond to lawful orders to stop his illegal actions, thus preventing us from carrying out our duties.”

Charukhin admitted that the report was, in fact, dictated to him by a Basmanny Internal Affairs agency official named Dmitry Popsuev.

In addition, the court reviewed video recordings of Yashin’s detention that showed he was detained before Nemtsov – making the police accusations that Yashin pushed the officers away from Nemtsov an impossibility.

Yashin’s complaint comes after he served 5 days in jail on charges of disobeying police orders during the New Year’s Eve Strategy 31 rally in Moscow. Fellow oppositionists Boris Nemtsov, Eduard Limonov, and Konstantin Kosyakin were also arrested in connection with the rally and served between 10 to 15 days in jail. Videos indicating that Yashin was innocent were not admitted to the trial as evidence and he promised to appeal his sentence upon being released. The oppositionists and their supporters say the arrests and jail sentences were politically motivated.