Moscow court sentences Kasparov to 5 days in jail

Описание: (24 Nov 2007) SHOTLIST
++NIGHT SHOTS++
1. People gathered outside Meshchanski Court
++INTERIOR SHOTS++
2. Policemen inside court chamber
3. Former chess champion Gary Kasparov inside station with colleagues awaiting the judge's pronouncing of decision
4. Cutaway of cameras
5. Judge inside court
6. Kasparov listening
7. Cutaway of judge
8. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Garry Kasparov, Former chess champion:
"Everything you heard here is a lie. The witnesses' testimonies contradict each other, they were confused. All my rights were violated from the outset, from the moment of my detention, not a single word."
9. Kasparov leaving courtroom surrounded by police
++NIGHT SHOTS++
10. Police outside courtroom
STORYLINE
Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was sentenced to five days in jail late on Saturday after he helped lead an anti-Kremlin protest in Moscow that resulted in clashes with riot police and dozens of arrests.
"What you've heard is all lies," Kasparov said after the sentence was read. "The testimony is contradictory. There was not a single word of truth," he said to journalists inside the courtroom.
During the hastily organised trial, two riot police testified in court that they had been given direct orders before the rally to arrest Kasparov, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's harshest critics.
One of the policemen acknowledged that the two reports he had filed were contradictory.
Kasparov was charged with organising an unsanctioned procession of at least 1,500 people directed against Putin, the charging documents said, and of chanting anti-government slogans and of resisting arrest.
Kasparov said he was beaten by police.
The violence occurred in the midst of an election campaign in which some opposition political groups have been sidelined by new election rules, or
have complained of being hobbled by official harassment.
After a series of speeches by protest leaders at the rally, a group of demonstrators broke past police and marched toward the centre of the city
through traffic, chanting and carrying burning red flares.
They were stopped by lines of police with shields, helmets and body armour, who pushed or hauled them into waiting white police buses.
Kasparov was hustled away by a ring of plainclothes and uniformed officers as he spoke to reporters near the site of the march.

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