The court overturned the sentence of the Sverdlovsk doctor for the death of a patient after a video of the autopsy surfaced.

      The court overturned the sentence of a Sverdlovsk doctor for the death of a patient after a video recording of the autopsy appeared. On July 2, 2026, the criminal case against endoscopist Mikhail Shalagin from the Demidov City Hospital in Nizhny Tagil was sent for a new review, as reported by the portal v-tagile.ru. The decision was made by the cassation court after the emergence of a video recording of the deceased's autopsy, the defense of Shalagin told the portal E1.RU.

      The head of the endoscopic department of the Demidov City Hospital, Mikhail Shalagin, heard the verdict in October 2025. The doctor was accused under Part 2 of Article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Causing death by negligence due to improper performance of professional duties). According to the investigation, in 2022, during a planned operation on a 35-year-old patient who had approached doctors with mechanical jaundice, Shalagin damaged the common bile duct, which led to the subsequent death of the woman.

      The court sentenced the accused to two years of restriction of freedom; however, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, Shalagin was released from serving his sentence. At the same time, as v-tagile.ru writes, the Demidov Hospital was ordered to pay 5 million rubles in moral damages to the family of the deceased, and the doctor himself was obliged to pay monthly compensation (until the child of the victim reaches adulthood).

      According to the publication E1.RU, in the cassation appeal, the defense presented the court with a video recording of the autopsy made by a pathologist. It shows that he did not find any damage from which bile allegedly leaked.

      In the opinion of the defense, this is objective evidence of Mikhail Shalagin's innocence. The doctor's lawyer, Ilya Kozhevnikov, also refutes the prosecution's claim that it was impossible to operate on the patient due to existing contraindications (poor blood clotting).

      After the surgical intervention performed by Mikhail Shalagin, the woman began to experience pain. Suspecting perforation, another surgeon, Shalagin's colleague, operated on her again. According to Shalagin's defense, the abdominal surgery and the resulting complication in the form of bleeding negatively affected the patient's condition.

      As a result of the cassation review, the case was sent for a new hearing in the court of first instance.

      Meanwhile, lawyer Yulia Lipinskaya, representing the interests of the victim's side, urged E1.RU to wait for the reasoning part of the verdict cancellation. She claims that the case was returned for a new review because Ilya Kozhevnikov was simultaneously defending Shalagin and representing the interests of a witness whose testimony implicated the accused. This violated the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.