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.

Novaya Gazeta Editor-in-Chief Dmitri Muratov, who heads the special commission formed by the Public Council on the Moscow City Police, said that the conclusion was reached after reviewing videos filmed of Nemtsov’s detention.

The commission is still continuing further work on the case, said Muratov. He expects that a report will eventually be produced that will lead to an investigation of the actions of police at the rally.

Nemtsov sat out 15 days of administrative arrest earlier this month after being convicted of resisting police at the December 31 Strategy 31 rally, and the commission’s findings indicate that the case against him was unlawful. Since the beginning of the proceedings, the oppositionist and his supporters have been accusing the presiding judge of refusing to admit video evidence that would have acquitted Nemtsov of the charges. On January 2, he was sentenced to 15 days in jail.

Muratov later announced that he was quitting the Public Council on the Moscow City Police over the scores of detentions on Triumfalnaya Square during the rally. Following Thursday’s announcement, he said he was only continuing work on the special commission.

Nemtsov commented on the commission’s findings on his blog:

The commission carefully studied the Moscow city police’s operation video and the video we tried to show Judge Borovkovaya and in the Tverskoy Regional Court. It turned out that the videos were the same and, after a three-hour analysis, members of the commission were left with no doubt that I had committed no violations.

This shows that my detention and subsequent arrest were illegal.

It’s too bad for [Moscow City Police spokesman Viktor] Biryukov, who continues to weasel his way out of this. On December 31 and at the beginning of January he said that I tried to block Tverskaya and that I organized an unsanctioned rally, and today, when he was backed up against the wall with video materials, didn’t find anything smarter to say than that he wasn’t clear about everything in the materials.

It’s also too bad for [President Dmitri] Medvedev, who said just today that my arrest is not political, and lies “in the judicial sphere.” Dmitri Anatolievich must be aware that the only people arrested on New Year’s Eve night were opposition leaders – Limonov, Kosyakin, Tor, Yashin, and myself. That alone testifies to this being a political order. In general, when the president says in the course of two days that Khodorkovsky was correctly sentenced and the arrests of opposition leaders had no political motive, that’s not a president anyone’s going to believe.

Aleksei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy radio, made the remarks at a session of the Moscow City Police Public Council on Tuesday. As he later clarified on his radio show, the editor felt that while the Russian government’s routine prohibition of opposition events on the square is illegal, it is necessary for opposition organizers to “take a step back” if they want to reach their goal of achieving the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of assembly.

The comments come a week after police detained 170 protesters at a rally in defense of free assembly, part of the Russian opposition’s ongoing Strategy 31 campaign. Dozens of activists were beaten, and at least two were hospitalized. The rally, like the others before it, had not been sanctioned by Moscow city authorities, who said that they had already granted permission to pro-Kremlin youth activists to hold a rally in support of blood drives on the square that day.

Venediktov characterized the ongoing conflict over Triumfalnaya Square, which Strategy 31 organizers say has become their traditional meeting place, as a “mutual obstinacy” that, realistically, can only be resolved by “nulling the situation.” Since neither the government nor the oppositionists are willing to cede the square, “it simply must be given up,” he said.

Konstantin Kosyakin, a Strategy 31 co-organizer, rejected the proposal and told Kasparov.ru that the activists plan to hold their ground.

“People already automatically come to Triumfalnaya at six o’clock on the 31st of the month,” Kosyakin said. “The government is afraid that this place will become an attraction for all oppositionist and civil rights forces. Therefore, if we compromise, the people will think that we have betrayed them.”

“This government is a government of thieves and bandits, and you cannot meet them halfway,” he added.

Gazeta.ru Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Mikhailin, also a member of the Public Council, told news website Grani.ru that he wholly shared Venediktov’s position. He said that if large gatherings on Triumfalnaya Square truly hinder traffic – one of the reasons Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has given as to why Strategy 31 rallies are routinely prohibited – then both Strategy 31 rallies and blood drive rallies organized by pro-Kremlin youth groups should indeed be banned.

Meanwhile, Moscow Helsinki Group head and Strategy 31 co-organizer Lyudmila Alexeyeva also attended the Public Council session and refuted that Venediktov asked for Triumfalnaya to be closed to protesters. “It’s possible that he said something else afterwards, it’s written on the Ekho Moskvy website, but there he said that everyone needs to be put in the same conditions: ‘Either nobody is allowed, or don’t just allow [the government’s] favorites.’ I’m told that it’s written on the website that he demanded that Triumfalnaya Square be closed. I heard nothing of the sort,” she said.

Denis Bilunov, executive director of the opposition movement Solidarity, said that Venediktov’s statements play into the hands of the authorities by calling for concessions by the opposition.

“We can make concessions when, for example, [Russian President Dmitri] Medvedev or Luzhkov speak unequivocally about the illegality of refusing to sanction protests on Triumfalnaya Square and begin to investigate this,” he said.

Correction – June 9, 2010:  This story originally reported that the event held by pro-Kremlin youth groups was a blood drive. It was, in fact, a rally in support of the idea of a blood drive; no blood was donated at the event. The article has been corrected to reflect as much.