If, as in *Back to the Future*, it were possible to go back to 2009, there is one key document whose cancellation could have saved all 12 people — including 4 children — who were murdered and burned in Kushchyovskaya by the Tsapok gang.
A document is exactly what mattered — no superhero needed to appear on November 4, 2010, at the home of Server Ametov and save his family and the guests who had come to visit.
No superhero was needed here at all — what was needed was a functioning prosecutor’s office, not a pack of traitors doing business with gangsters. And the key date is not the day of the murders, but an event that took place a year earlier, on September 8, 2009.
That was when Korzhinek, the prosecutor of Krasnodar Krai (region), handed gang leader Sergei Tsapok a license for impunity — one that became a license to kill.
The reason is that even earlier, in July 2009, Tsapok insulted and beat up a police officer who refused to acknowledge his authority.
Anyone else would have been jailed immediately for that, and a criminal case was in fact opened against Tsapok. But at this difficult moment for the gangster, his loyal friends came to the rescue — the prosecutor’s office.
Regional prosecutor Korzhinek, a protégé of Prosecutor General Chaika and a member of his team, cancels the order to open the criminal case.
Tsapok remains free and is not even under investigation. Once again, he understands: with prosecutor-partners, anything is allowed. Tsapok acts on this impunity through rapes and assaults, and everything escalates. Then, a year later, as we know, he and his associates slaughtered 12 people and did not even try to flee — he went to celebrate the operation at the Malinki café, located not far from the murder scene.
Obviously, we are not in *Back to the Future*. Obviously, the murdered cannot be brought back. Nevertheless, we at the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation) consider it a matter of principle to achieve the following:
The cancellation of that very order by Prosecutor Korzhinek, on the grounds of its obvious illegality.
An investigation into this part of the story and the criminal prosecution of the person responsible. Under Article 300 of the Russian Criminal Code, the unlawful release from criminal liability of a person suspected or accused of committing a crime by a prosecutor, investigator, or inquiry officer is itself a crime.
To this end, we did the only two things possible: we formally appealed to the Investigative Committee, and we formally appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
And don’t laugh right away about the Prosecutor General’s Office. It is clear that its head, Chaika, is also the head of the whole mafia. We know that Artyom Chaika still maintains close ties with Korzhinek — that is all true.
However, it is important for us to force the prosecutor’s office to choose between two options: a) declare Korzhinek’s order regarding Tsapok lawful, or b) admit that we are right and cancel Korzhinek’s order despite his friendship with Chaika.
The same applies to the Investigative Committee and Bastrykin. They must say publicly whether Tsapok’s release from criminal liability in 2009 was, in their view, a crime — or whether they think everything was fine.
This is the most important thing. If you like, the most important political issue. Because in this part of the Kushchyovskaya story, there is nothing from our investigation, no documents obtained by us. It is simply an answer to the question: are the Russian authorities — and the prosecutor’s office in particular — prepared to protect the Tsapok gang even after the death of its leader?