Former director general of Ratibor company, Vladimir Malakhovsky (front), and former Yukos deputy director in charge of the group's debts, Vladimir Pereverzin, after their trial at the Basmanny Court in Moscow. Malakhovsky has been sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Photo: ITAR-TASS
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Ten Cases in One Year
As always, the expiring year has been rich in high-profile trials. Vlast analytical weekly traditionally selected the cases which can be considered precedent.
13 Billion Case
On March 5, 2007, Moscow’s Basmanny Court pronounced sentence to Vladimir Pereverzin, former deputy head of Yukos’ foreign debt directorate, and Vladimir Malakhovsky, former director general of Ratibor company. They were sentenced to 11 (Pereverzin) and 12 (Malakhovsky) years of maximum security penal colony for embezzling $13 billion and money laundering.
Pereverzin and Malakhovsky were arrested in December 2004, and proceedings on their case began in April 2006. According to the sentence, YUKOS subsidiaries were extracting oil and supplying it to Fargoil and Ratibor companies, underpricing the oil. Fargoil was then headed by Spain’s citizen Antonio Valdes-Garcia, who went into hiding during the judicial process, and is now on the international wanted list. Both companies are registered in offshore zones in Mordovia and Evenkia. They were supplying crude oil to Cyprus companies Ruthenhold Holdings Ltd. and Pronet Holdings Ltd. (both headed by Pereverzin). The two Cyprus companies were selling oil at market prices, outputting the profits to offshores abroad. The defendants said it was a taxation optimization scheme, but the court decided it was extra-large-scale conversion of entrusted property by an organized group (article 160, part 4, of Russia’s Criminal Code) and money laundering by an organized group (article 174.1, part 4, of Russia’s Criminal Code).
The sentence is one of the toughest for YUKOS’ economic crimes, and has actually determined the outcome of a new process over the already imprisoned former YUKOS owners Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. They are accused of organizing the same crimes as Pereverzin and Malakhovsky, their cases have the same elements, so they face terms as large as their former colleagues.
Russian Bombers Case
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| Photo: Kommersant |
| Vladimir Vlasov, former research fellow of Bochvar R&D Institute for Inorganic Materials federal state unitary enterprise, found guilty of blowing up a Grozny-Moscow train in June 2005, was sentenced to 18 years of maximum security penal colony. |
On April 10, 2007, the Moscow Regional Court pronounced sentence to Vladimir Vlasov, former research fellow of Bochvar R&D Institute for Inorganic Materials federal state unitary enterprise, and Mikhail Klevachev, former foreman of Gormost state unitary enterprise. They were accused of blowing up a Grozny-Moscow train in June 2005. They were sentenced to 18 and 19 years of maximum security penal colony accordingly.
The train, on its way from Chechnya’s capital Grozny, was blown up on June 12, 2005, in 153 kilometers from Moscow. Nine passengers were injured, five wagons ran off the rails, and railway bed was damaged. Vlasov and Klevachev were arrested already on July 1. Investigators found them owing to testimonies of witnesses who remembered the dark-blue car of one of them, and also through checking cell phone calls in the zone where the terrorist act was committed. During searches in their apartments, investigators found nationalist literature and explosive device components. Vlasov and Klevachev were charged with terrorism (article 205.3 of Russia’s Criminal Code), attempted murder of two and more persons out of nationalist hatred (article 30.3; article 105.2), illegal purchase and keeping of explosive substances (article 222.3). A jury participated in the trial, which began on September 7, 2006. The jury found both defendants innocent on December 1, 2006. However, the same day it was dismissed by the court, on the grounds that the jury had talked to one of the attorneys outside the court. New jury delivered ‘guilty’ verdict. The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence on June 19.
The sentence served to Vlasov and Klevachev became the first one in respect to the so-called ‘new Russian terrorists’ (unless we take into account Revolutionary Army Council member Igor Gubkin, who blew up a monument to Nicolas II in Moscow’s suburbs in 1997, and who was sentenced in 2006 for this and other crimes to 19 years, later reduced to 17 years). The case involving Vlasov and Klevachev, along with the case against Vladimir Kvachkov (whose group is accused of assassination attempt against Anatoly Chubais on March 17, 2005), gave grounds to suspecting a Russian trace (instead of a Chechen trace only) in terrorist acts in Russia. Apparently, to cool ‘folk avengers’ in other cases involving Russian nationalistic terrorism, sentences will be tough. Yet, just like in the Ulman case (please see below), court has to counteract jury: for instance, the jury was dismissed already twice at the Kvachkov group trial.
Record Bribe Case
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| Photo: Grigory Tambulov |
| Russian Tax Service employee Oleg Alexeev (R), and Russian Central Bank lawyer Alexei Mishin (L) are in court, charged with a $1 million bribe. |
On April 23, 2007, the Moscow City Court served sentence to Oleg Alexeev, deputy director of Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s credit organizations department, and Alexei Mishin, leading legal advisor of Russia’s Central Bank’s chief territorial department in Moscow. The court found them guilty of receiving a bribe of $1 million, and sentenced them to 8 and 10 years of maximum security penal colony.
In September 2005, Alexeev and Mishin offered to Alexei Ivashchenko, chairman of board of Russian Capital bank, their help in lifting tax claims amounting to around $75 million off the bank, asking a remuneration of $5.3 million. As they said, $1 million was for Alexeev personally, $2.5 million was for one of the Finance Minister’s deputies (his name was not disclosed), and $1.8 million was for the Federal Tax Service’s management. The banker agreed with the exactors on paying ‘by installments’, and appealed to the Federal Security Service in the meantime. In October 2006, after the bribe’s first tranche was transferred, Alexeev and Mishin were arrested. The court sentenced Alexeev to 8 years of imprisonment and a fine of 1 million rubles. Mishin received 10 years, because he was also found guilty of misappropriating an apartment falsely obtained by him from the Central Bank, along with his “active aiding in bribe exaction”. Besides, both defendants are to pay $67,900 to banker Ivashchenko for the interest earned by the credit taken for paying the bribe.
The $1 million bribe is the largest among those proven in Russian courts. It is four times more than the previous record bribe: in June 2004, Valery Suladze, Krasnoyarsk Territory governor’s deputy for construction, was sentenced to 7.5 years in jail for receiving $250,000.
Fugitive Electron Case
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| Photo: Elina Bilevskaya |
| Valery Yarantsev, captain of Electron trawler ship, who escaped from Norwegian authorities to Russia and was charged with poaching. |
On April 26, Murmansk’ Pervomaisky Court pronounced sentence to Valery Yarantsev, captain of Electron trawler ship, who escaped from Norwegian authorities to Russia and was charged with poaching. He paid a fine of 100,000 rubles for illegal fishing.
The incident took place in October 2005, when Electron was fishing near the Spitsbergen Archipelago. Norwegian inspectors suspected Russians of poaching, checked the ship, found prohibited tackles, and demanded to navigate the ship to the harbor of Tromse city for writing a protocol. Instead, the captain refused and led his Electron into Russia’s territorial waters, carrying away two inspectors onboard. Norwegian Navy chased the vessel for quite long, but failed to make it stop. Reports on Electron’s “heroic” voyage appeared on all Russian TV channels. Captain Yarantsev became almost as notorious as Vitaly Kaloev. However, when the captain returned to homeland, a criminal case was initiated against him. He was accused of illegal fishing with abusing his official position and of illegal deprivation of another person’s freedom unrelated to kidnapping. Norway initiated a criminal case against Yarantsev as well. However, it was later terminated (as it is believed, in exchange for Russia’s lifting the embargo on Norwegian salmon’s import, introduced in December 2005). Russia’s state prosecution demanded sentencing Yarantsev to 3 years of probation, a fine of 300,000 rubles, and depriving him of the right to head the crews of fishing vessels. However, the court delivered a milder ruling, taking into account that although the fishermen used prohibited tackles, the Norwegian inspectors had no right to send the trawler to Tromse.
Moreover, the court refuted charges of capturing the inspectors, because they confirmed that no one was keeping them there by force. They decided not to leave the ship, following their command’s orders. The Electron case became the first one when fishermen faced trial in Russia for poaching in foreign territorial waters. Before, similar cases ended less fortunately for Russians: violating vessels were detained by foreign services, while their owners and crew had to pay fines much higher than 100,000 rubles. Now Russian captains know what to do if foreigners catch them while poaching.
Illegal Computer Lessons Case
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| Photo: Tolgat Tagirov |
| Alexander Ponosov, principal of the school of Sepych village, accused of using illegal copies of Windows operating system on the computers in computer science class, and of causing damages of 202,000 rubles to Microsoft company. |
On May 7, the Vereshchaginsky Regional Court (in Perm’ Territory) found Alexander Ponosov, principal of the school of Sepych village, guilty of using illegal copies of Windows operating system on the computers in computer science class, and of causing damages of 202,000 rubles to Microsoft company. The principal paid a fine of 5,000 rubles.
The fact of using counterfeit software was discovered during a check by prosecutors carried out in May 2006. Ponosov said the operating system had been installed on computers before they were supplied to the school, while he himself did not have necessary qualification to determine whether the software was legal or not. Prosecutor’s office did not believe the principal, and served charges on November 21, 2006, along article 146 of Russia’s Criminal Code (“Violation of copyright and neighboring rights”) which stipulates punishment of up to 5 years of jail. The injured party – Microsoft – announced in a special statement that it “does not regard the case as malicious violation of its rights”. On February 15, 2007, the court ruled to close the case due to its “insignificance”. Neither the prosecutors nor the defendant, who demanded ‘not guilty’ verdict, were satisfied with the ruling. New hearings found the principal guilty. Appeal filed by the attorneys did not help: on June 14, the Perm’ Territorial Court left the verdict unchanged.
The trial over Ponosov became the first case on computer piracy in Russia, causing a broad public resonance. It went so far that President Vladimir Putin had to answer the question about Ponosov at the annual press conference on February 1, 2007. The president said that “threatening a school principal with jail is rubbish” (right after which the court tried to shut down the case). Apparently, after Putin’s words no one will ever dare initiate cases on counterfeit software against school principals. At the same time, the authorities had to acknowledge that pirated software is used in state institutions. As a result, First Deputy PM Dmitry Medvedev promised to rid schools of illegal software in three years’ time.
Criminal Order Case
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| Photo: Vasily Deryugin |
| On June 14, 2007, the North Caucasus District Military Court delivered ‘guilty’ verdict for the Ulman case. Captain Eduard Ulman was sentenced to 14 years of maximum security penal colony; Ensign Vladimir Voevodin – to 12 years; Senior Lieutenant Alexander Kalagansky – 11 years, Major Alexei Perelevsky – 9 years. Only the latter was present at the trial. The others went into hiding in April 2007. |
On June 14, 2007, the North Caucasus District Military Court delivered ‘guilty’ verdict for the Ulman case. Captain Eduard Ulman was sentenced to 14 years of maximum security penal colony; Ensign Vladimir Voevodin – to 12 years; Senior Lieutenant Alexander Kalagansky – 11 years, Major Alexei Perelevsky – 9 years. Only the latter was present at the trial. The others went into hiding in April 2007. Two months before running away, Ulman said in an interview to Vlast analytical weekly that a ‘guilty’ verdict would be “an anti-army sabotage” [please see #6 as of February 19, 2007].
Commander of reconnaissance group of the Chief Intelligence Department’s special mission detachment #641 Captain Ulman, Senior Lieutenant Kalagansky, and Ensign Voevodin were arrested in Chechnya on January 14, 2002. They were accused of shooting to death six Chechen civilians on January 11 near Dai village. Major Perelevsky, who had passed on to Ulman over the phone the order of Colonel Plotnikov to shoot the Chechens, was arrested soon afterwards. The colonel denied that he had given the order, and was not brought to justice, although the court did not doubt the fact that the order had come. The case was regarded by jury twice, on April 29, 2004, and May 19, 2005. Both times, jury found the defendants not guilty, but then the Supreme Court cancelled the verdicts [please see Vlast #50 as of December 20, 2004, and #51 as of December 26, 2006]. Later, upon the request from Chechen President Alu Alkhanov, the Constitutional Court forbade jury hearings of cases involving crimes in Chechnya until the formation of jury courts in the republic. Three professional judges found the defendants guilty. On November 29, the Supreme Court left the sentence in force.
The case’s outcome can be regarded as the first instance of a new practice of solving extremely sensitive cases on war crimes in Chechnya. Guilty verdict satisfied those who think that civilians should not be killed even upon orders. The fact that the defendants never went to jail satisfied the military men, who find nothing criminal in the defendants’ actions.
Lowered Flag Case
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| Photo: Pavel Lisizyn |
| Ekaterinburg’s Nationalists-Bolsheviks’ leader was arrested on the night of August 22, 2007, on the eve of the State Flag Day. Nikiforov climbed to the roof of the Ural State University, where he replaced the Russian three-color flag with the Russian Empire’s black-yellow-white flag. |
On November 1, 2007, Ekaterinburg’s Kirovsky Regional Court sentenced Nationalist-Bolshevik Alexei Nikiforov to three months of imprisonment in a settlement colony for outrage upon the Russian flag.
Ekaterinburg’s Nationalists-Bolsheviks’ leader was arrested on the night of August 22, 2007, on the eve of the State Flag Day. Nikiforov climbed to the roof of the Ural State University, where he replaced the Russian three-color flag with the Russian Empire’s black-yellow-white flag. That was already his second action with flags. On the night between April 4 and 5, he changed flags on the university roof as well. That time, Nikiforov carefully folded the Russian flag and left it on the roof. Second time, he took it with him. When he descended from the roof, he was arrested by the policemen, who were watching the action from the very beginning. The court classified his actions as article 329 of Russia’s Criminal Code (“Outrage upon the state flag”).
Nikiforov’s sentence is so far the only case when the court ruled a jail term for doing something with the flag. In 2004, Communist Party member Armen Beniaminov was tried along that article. He tore the Russian three-color off the flagpole at the State Duma building, and replaced it with the red Soviet banner. For that, he got one year of probation. Already after Nikiforov’s case, Tyumen resident Anton Grebenkov and Saratov Region’s resident Ermakgali Sarsengaliev, who tore off flags from administrative buildings while being in the alcohol-intoxicated state, got away with probation terms. By the way, the Criminal Code does not give explanations as to which actions precisely can be considered as outrage upon the flag. So, it is not quite clear why lowering the state flag by several meters from the roof to the ground is a crime, while lowering the flag by 4 kilometers under water, as State Duma Deputy Speaker Artur Chilingarov did in August, is not a crime.
Berezovsky Case
On November 29, 2007, Moscow’s Savelovsky Court sentenced political emigrant Boris Berezovsky in his absence to six years of standard regime penal colony for organizing the embezzlement of 214.9 million rubles from Aeroflot company. Judge said the imprisonment term will be calculated from the moment of actual arrest of the convict.
The case of Aeroflot’s foreign currency profits embezzlement through Swiss company Andava, whose co-owners were Berezovsky and Nikolai Glushkov, former first deputy of the air company’s director, has been investigated since January 1999. All charges were lifted off Berezovsky in November 1999 due to incompleteness. In July 2006, Glushkov and two more Aeroflot top managers received two years of probation each for fraud. It was a retrial actually. The first trial ended in 2004, Glushkov was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months, which he had already spent in pre-trial prison by that time. On April 13, 2007, after another anti-Putin speech by Berezovsky, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced the beginning of a new investigation of the Aeroflot case in relation to the political emigrant. By the way, money laundering charges were lifted off Berezovsky in court, while the embezzlement “in an organized group” was re-qualified into a milder “in preliminary collusion”.
The ruling in the Aeroflot case is the first sentence to Berezovsky, but not the last one, obviously. He is also accused of attempt at forcible seizure of power, misappropriation of a state villa in Moscow’s expensive suburb of Zhukovka, embezzlement of cars during the netting between AvtoVAZ, LogoVAZ, and Samara Region administration in 1994-1995, and misappropriation through fraud of a $13-million loan from SBS-Agro bank in 1997.
Dissenting Chess Player Case
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| Photo: Alexey Kudenko |
| On November 24, leader of the United Civil Front and 13th world champion in chess Garry Kasparov was sentenced by Moscow’s Meshchansky Court to five days of administrative arrest for holding a non-authorized protest rally and resistance to police officers. |
On November 24, leader of the United Civil Front and 13th world champion in chess Garry Kasparov was sentenced by Moscow’s Meshchansky Court to five days of administrative arrest for holding a non-authorized protest rally and resistance to police officers.
Kasparov was arrested during the March of Dissenters in Moscow, in which from 1,000 to 3,000 people took part, according to different data. The opposition leader was then taken to the Basmanny police department, then to the Meshchansky Court, and then to Petrovka, 38. That was where he served his term. All five days, attorneys and associates were not allowed to see Kasparov. Neither could Anatoly Karpov, Public Chamber member, chess player, and Kasparov’s old rival, see him. Kasparov said he spent the term alone in a three-bed cell, was receiving parcels, and going for a walk twice a day. On November 29, Kasparov was taken in a police car to the Basmanny police department, and then got a ride home.
The arrest itself for a non-authorized rally is no longer a precedent. A year ago, For Human Rights movement leader Lev Ponomarev was detained for three days for a non-authorized rally in memory of Beslan tragedy [please see Vlast #51 as of December 25, 2006]. Administrative arrest was also used against other members of Other Russia. What is a precedent indeed is the ride home. Police must have had the task to prevent Kasparov’s ‘heroic exodus’ from Petrovka, 38. There were cases in Soviet times when a prisoner was freed in a plane when expatriated. However, the release at home had not been practiced until that case.
Criminal Lawmakers Group Case
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| Photo: ITAR-TASS |
| On November 30, the Tver’ Regional Court sentenced 12 deputies of Tver’ City Duma, headed by its former chairman Viktor Pochtarev, to penal colony terms from 2.5 to 7.5 years for taking bribes amounting to 4.3 million rubles from local commercial structures. |
On November 30, the Tver’ Regional Court sentenced 12 deputies of Tver’ City Duma, headed by its former chairman Viktor Pochtarev, to penal colony terms from 2.5 to 7.5 years for taking bribes amounting to 4.3 million rubles from local commercial structures. On December 5, one more lawmaker was sentenced to 6 years within the same case.
The scandal broke out in March 2006. Back then, 14 deputies were accused of receiving bribes from such companies as Tver’ Communal Systems (for the permission to raise house utilities maintenance tariffs), Lazurstroi (for reducing the tax on the company’s profits), and for transferring the property of Tvervodokanal municipal enterprise to Tver’ Vodokanal private enterprise. According to investigators, as a consequence of the communal tariffs raise approved by the deputies, citizens of Tver’ paid almost 90 million rubles extra in 2005-2006. On August 24, 2007, a jury trial found 12 deputies and 3 bribe-giving businessmen guilty. One deputy was acquitted. Former speaker and United Russia former member Pochtarev received more than others – 7.5 years, because he was found to be the corruption schemes’ organizer. However, he received a punishment lower than the lowest level for cooperation with investigators and for giving testimony against his predecessor Andrei Borisenko. Tver’ Communal Systems manager Roman Boev was sentenced to one year and eight months of settlement colony; his deputy Sergei Khromov and Lazurstroi’s director Fedor Onokhov were sentenced to probation terms. One more deputy was convicted on December 5. His case was proceeded separately due to his illness.
The sentence to corrupted officials is the largest by a number of defendants corruption process in modern Russia. The case involved 13 out of 31 city Duma members (over 40 percent of deputies). The defendants belonged to different parties (United Russia, Rodina, Communist Party, People’s Will), but their ideological differences did not prevent them from uniting on the basis of common commercial interests.
Afanasy Sborov
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 24, 2007
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