A rare case when I’m actually glad to receive a court summons.
It can’t always be Putin dragging me into the Lyublinsky, Basmanny, or Simonovsky district courts in Moscow.
Now it’s our turn to go to a French court—not against Putin himself, but against Yves Rocher, the company that in 2012–2014 happily agreed to serve his political interests and take part in FSB “active measures” (covert political operations).
Back then, as you may remember, at the height of the protest rallies outside the Investigative Committee and against Bastrykin (by the way, read his deranged speech and judge for yourself the caliber of the people running the country), Putin gave orders to fabricate as many criminal cases against me as possible.
One of them was the “Yves Rocher case,” a fake case alleging that the Navalny brothers had stolen 55 million rubles from the company.
Later, during the trial, the company realized what it had gotten itself into and stated that no one had caused it any damage and it had no claims against anyone. In response, the Investigative Committee investigator said right there in court, in front of journalists (and if you don’t believe me, you can read the many trial reports): the investigator knows better whether you suffered damages or not.
The court couldn’t have cared less about any evidence. The key piece of paper in the file was a statement from Yves Rocher’s Bruno Leproux, a French national. He had coordinated that statement with the company’s French headquarters.
The coward and nonentity Leproux never found the courage to come to court, even though we summoned him a million times, and he himself had sworn to journalists “on his officer’s honor” that he would appear. He left Yves Rocher and went to work for another French company.
Because of this case, I spent a year under house arrest. Later, the European Court ruled that it had been unlawful and that the arrest was politically motivated.
Oleg and I were convicted. I got a suspended sentence, while he served 3.5 years in an actual prison because of this fabrication. He spent most of that time in solitary confinement. Again, the European Court found that the case had been fabricated and that no crime had been committed. Russia’s Supreme Court, in direct violation of the law, refused to comply with the ECHR ruling.
Back in 2014, Leonid Volkov—and special thanks to him for this—launched a campaign called #AskYvesRocher: uncomfortable questions for the French company that it tried hard not to answer.
And some time later, he received a letter from the office of the Paris lawyer Maître Bourdon, roughly saying:
We are French, and we are disturbed that a French company took part in fabricating a political criminal case in Putin’s interests. In our country, justice exists, and we are ready to help you here with legal action completely free of charge.
Of course, we welcomed this, even though we understood that inside our own country it would not help much. Leonid met with these wonderful people several times and gave them all the case documents. Here he describes everything in detail.
The years went by. And then—just like that—the wheel of Themis turned, and in February of this year, in the French city of Vannes (where Yves Rocher is registered), an investigating judge was appointed to determine whether the company took part in the false accusations and fabrication of the case.
Oleg and I have been summoned for Tuesday. There will be a preliminary hearing at which the judge will question us.
I don’t know how this will end, but the very fact that the case has been opened shows this: yes, justice exists in France, and you can turn to it for fairness.
I’ll keep you updated. And huge thanks to Maître Bourdon’s office, and to him personally.