“I refuse freedom in exchange for a confession”

In an Open Statement of 27.07.2026, imprisoned activist Dmitry Bagrash publicly declares that he will not confess in order to be released earlier, even though, in his own assessment, that is effectively what is being suggested to him.

The background is a contradiction in the statement of the Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Berlin (Berlin Prosecutor General’s Office) of 26.05.2026: it expressly states that a comprehensive admission of guilt is “not an indispensable requirement”, yet Bagrash’s lack of “working through the offence”, meaning his insistence on his innocence, is held against his early release.

At the same time, Bagrash filed a counterstatement in the complaint proceedings before the Kammergericht (case reference 2 Ws 111/26). He opposes the Prosecutor General’s Office’s application to dismiss his immediate complaint (sofortige Beschwerde) as unfounded and submits that lawful complaints, hunger strikes, publications and insistence on his innocence must not be used as indicators of dangerousness without a specific factual basis.

Bagrash sees this as the core of his case: he considers the judgment of 22.07.2024 wrong, and a confession would make definitive the error that he believes exists.