Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to ordering an acid attack that nearly blinded Sergei Filin, the troupe's artistic director.
Yuri Zarutsky, a jobless ex-convict accused of carrying out Dmitrichenko's plot, told the court that he had acted alone.
Guards brought a handcuffed Dmitrichenko and Zarutsky into a Moscow court room and locked them in a metal cage--along with a third defendant--at the start of a case that has tarnished the reputation of a prime Russian cultural symbol.
All three individuals face 12 years in jail if convicted of intentionally inflicting grave bodily harm on Filin in the January 17 attack that shocked the nation.
Dmitrichenko, looking pale and reading out a pre-written statement from a piece of paper, denied the charges. He said previously that he only wanted Filin to be roughed up and was shocked to learn that acid had been used.
"What happened to Filin is a result of Zarutsky's savage conduct, not a result of my activities. I had no hostile attitude towards Filin," Dmitrichenko said. "Zarutsky...heeding his own motives, committed this dangerous act, which we never discussed since I had no intent and could not have had one to commit such an act in any form."
Prosecutors say Zarutsky attacked Filin on his return home from the Bolshoi late in the evening and left the 43-year-old in the snow, writhing in agony.
COUNTRY HOUSE
"I admit guilt," Zarutsky, wearing jeans and a sweater, said from the cage.
"I admit being guilty of attacking Filin. But I do not admit to doing it in cahoots with Pavel Dmitrichenko and Andrei Lipatov," he said, referring to the other two defendants.
Zarutsky, 35, spent the past seven years in jail for battery, his defense lawyer Sergei Kuprianov said.
According to Kuprianov, under Russian law, the maximum jail sentence would be lower if the judge ruled the suspects were not acting as a group and found only one person responsible.
Dmitrichenko and Zarutsky sat at different ends of the court room cage and did not speak to one another, separated by Lipatov--accused of driving the attacker to and from the site.
Dmitrichenko said during pre-trial hearings he had become acquainted with Zarutsky at his country house outside Moscow. Before the attack, Dmitrichenko complained to Zarutsky over what he described as favoritism by Filin in his powerful role.
Filin was not present during the hearing. His lawyer said he was in Germany receiving more medical treatment after some 20 surgeries to treat his face and save his sight.
The scandal led to the dismissal of Anatoly Iksanov, veteran head of the Bolshoi, a colonnaded building near the redbrick walls of the Kremlin. The Bolshoi's new director, Vladimir Urin, hopes to turn the spotlight from behind-the-scenes savagery back to the stage.
Prior to his departure, Iksanov suggested that another top ballet dancer, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, might have played a role in inciting the attack. Tsiskaridze denied playing any such part. When his contract was not renewed in June, the ballet dancer accused Iksanov of conducting a witch hunt to hound him out of the theater.
On Monday, Tsiskaridze was appointed acting director at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in Russia's second city, St. Petersburg.
(Writing by Maria Tsvetkova and Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Ralph Boulton and Logan K. Young)
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