Leaving Heroes of Might and Magic in protest of Alex’s removal from the Facebook group.

Man... Pete's post is a wild ride from start to finish :). I see why politicians have speechwriters; at least they maintain a coherence of thought.

So:

Disqualification from the tournament for violation of game rules

Link to the specific rule, please. In the rules, only the players themselves are forbidden from opening saves. Not a word about third parties. Moreover, the tradition of sending saves to other players for review has existed for many years, and if that's considered a violation, then at least 60-70% of the players from Bay should be banned. I've done it many times myself, and I've even discussed the game with those people more than once. There were a few situations where hints slipped into the interlocutor's speech, which made me very angry, and I even ignored Expert in ICQ until the end of the game.

If amendments are to be made to the rules, it should be noted that the tightening of laws has no retroactive effect.

disrespect toward the opponent

What disrespect? Forgot to save? Hehe :). A couple of sharp epithets in ICQ and the incident is settled.

unacceptable behavior of a fan.

A slap on the wrist.

Why not a Black Mark? Any judge could have given a Black Mark for this and been right. The personality and authority of Alex and Cobra were taken into account. Practically anyone else would have received a Black Mark.

Do I understand correctly that this phrase can be interpreted as: "We believe Alex cheated, but we don't have the guts to ban him?"

And another question—is this your understanding of the reasons or the official opinion of those AC members who voted against?

An example from real life.
A competition medalist is caught doping. Result annulled and disqualification for a certain period.
Regardless of how the doping entered the athlete's body: whether they bought headache pills at a pharmacy, the coach gave them vitamins, a doctor gave them cough syrup, or competitors slipped something into the compote during dinner. There is a test result, which means the athlete is responsible for it.

Unfortunately, you can't compare the two, because doping control has an approved sampling procedure and a methodology for detecting doping, adherence to which and the results of which are part of the competition rules.

For example, two samples are taken immediately, so that if the first is positive, the second can be checked more thoroughly. In the end, the probability of error is extremely low. And, by the way, a violation of the sampling protocol is considered an argument in defense of the athlete.

In this case, however, there is no procedure, no physical evidence, nothing at all. Only hints and guesses. It's roughly as if an athlete mentioned something about doping in a post-match interview, then hesitated, and some passerby said they saw the athlete injecting something before the start. That's a reason to study the sample more closely, but if the analysis yields no results, then any attempt to impose sanctions based on this would first be laughed at and then successfully challenged in court.

From this comes a logical question—did the AC consider the saves of this game that followed the violation? If so, were there signs in them that the player possessed more information than would be evident from the scouted territory?

If we acknowledge this situation as normal, then after that, no case of leaking, failure to save, or cheating can be punished at all. It will be enough to find a friend/relative who says: "The player stepped out to the toilet, so I played for him."

Ask lawyers or just rational people how laws are created. Usually, it happens like this—first, an incident occurs that does not contradict the laws, but it's clear that it shouldn't be this way.

After that, a corresponding law is passed, which, naturally, does not apply to the time preceding its adoption. Simply because at the moment of the incident, such actions did not contradict the law.

I personally am accused of eliminating a competitor.

I think the logic here is simple—if a person writes such texts, they are either stupid or biased. You haven't been noted for the former, so the latter remains.

However, the reasons for bias can be anything, not necessarily a desire to eliminate a competitor. The only important thing is that you have some personal interest in this specific outcome. And that's quite hard to hide; it shines through quite strongly.

The same applies to Pasha Dubrovin. It was already evident from the starting protocol that he had formed his official opinion before all the arguments were laid on the table. This means he really wanted it.

Plus, you both voted for a Black Mark, which is hard to explain by anything other than initial bias. Tell me—do you really believe that Alex cheated blatantly and then brought in Cobra to clear his name?

P.S. When Vitalik's case was being handled, a public opinion poll was conducted, and it reflected the players' opinions very well—not a single vote against, more than half for, and a few abstentions. I'm curious—why was there no public opinion poll this time? Could it be because it's clear the result would likely be the opposite?