Forensic psychiatric examination of terrorist-related criminal cases: clinical and social characteristics of the sub-experts, analysis of the expert case

Abstract

In recent years, due to changes in the socio-political situation, including at the international level, the number of terrorism-related criminal cases has increased, and, therefore, the number of forensic psychiatric examinations conducted in this category of cases has risen. To date, there is a lack of any scientific studies or analytical reviews devoted to the problem of forensic examination of suspects and the accused involved in such criminal cases. The article presents the results of a review of cases of outpatient complex forensic psychological and psychiatric examinations in terrorism-related criminal cases conducted on the basis of the Department of Forensic Psychiatric Examination, Psychiatric Clinical Hospital in Moscow, from 2020 to 2023. In total, 25 cases were described and analyzed, clinical and social characteristics were studied, and an overview of expert solutions was given. An analysis of one expert case was carried out. During the examinations, 56 % of the examinees did not show symptoms of mental illness when committing the incriminated criminal act, while 36 % of the examinees in the sample were diagnosed with a mental disorder. The diagnoses included mild cognitive disorder, various types of personality disorders (emotionally unstable, schizoid, with mixed features), alcohol abuse, as well as paranoid and undifferentiated forms of schizophrenia. Based on the conducted research, it is concluded that no confessional model of religious or other consciousness in itself is a source of terrorism, including its political form. Predisposition to terrorist manifestations is a multi-level phenomenon and enters an active phase due to certain «triggers» that operate at the individual, group or mass level, which depends, among other things, on psychopathological factors.