At yesterday’s очередном hearing in the Yves Rocher case, the court questioned a prosecution witness whom the prosecutors wanted so badly that the judge issued an order to have him brought in by force no fewer than three times.
Leonid Semyonovich Zaprudsky was the chief accountant of Glavpodpiska—the very company that the Investigative Committee (Russia’s main federal investigative agency) declared a “sham enterprise”—and he was the one who registered it.
I hadn’t seen him in more than four years (he confirmed this in court), and I couldn’t really understand why the prosecution was so obsessively summoning him. I even found myself thinking—sinfully, perhaps—that maybe they had persuaded or pressured him into giving false testimony.
In the end, the “prosecution witness,” Zaprudsky, showed up and said: the entire case is nonsense, no one broke any laws, he has no doubt that the criminal prosecution is politically motivated, and it is “clear to him how all this will end”.
So that was our star witness. He was either the 31st or the 32nd witness called. And let me remind you that so far, we have not had a single witness say even one word in support of the prosecution. And the only alleged victim questioned so far said that he learned about the “damages” from the investigator.
By the way, take note that the trendy new outlet Meduza has put together a profile of the Yves Rocher case, which is very useful for anyone who wants to understand it better.
There is also a long interview with Oleg Navalny here. And one with me.