Wow. Just wow. I’m reading it with reverence, as a historical document. Someday it will serve as the basis for a trial of Putin’s investigators who fabricated criminal cases.
Exactly two weeks ago, we were trying to force the Investigative Committee of Russia to give us the investigator’s ruling, or at least some document indicating what crime had supposedly taken place—the illegal proceeds from which all ACF employees were allegedly laundering.
The crime, evidently, was no trivial matter. There were about a dozen searches alone. Accounts were frozen. Offices were ransacked.
We were eagerly awaiting information about the substance of the crime.
And now we have the ruling.
The atrocity is described in the firm hand of Major General Gabdulin, the loyal aide to Investigative Committee chief Bastrykin, the Czech resident Mr. (a jab at allegations about his Czech residency status). A master fabricator. He was the one who handled the “Bolotnaya case” (the prosecution of protesters after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square rally), and he is now jailing innocent people in the Moscow case.
So, behold it (just don’t be frightened or have a heart attack from the description of this dark crime):
Unknown persons, including ACF employees, received an unknown sum of money from unknown persons.
Uhhh... so where is the description of the crime? you may ask. There really isn’t one. What we have in our hands is literally a document showing that this case was fabricated out of thin air. And yet it has already become so important and complex that they’ve decided to investigate it not until October 2019 (obviously not enough time), but until March 2020.
ACF’s leadership and its founder (that is, me) will today file a counter-complaint under Article 299, “Knowingly bringing an innocent person to criminal liability or unlawfully initiating a criminal case,” and Article 286, “Abuse of official powers.”
I’m sure Bastrykin and Gabdulin are snickering as they read this post and see what complaints we’re filing. They consider themselves untouchable, completely safe.
That’s fine, let them snicker. Yagoda snickered too. Yezhov snickered. Beria also snickered very merrily. And let me note that it was not the democratic public, not the Maidan, and not the West that stopped their snickering. It was statements exactly like these in their legal essence that stopped it.
We call on all ACF donors—honest people whose money has been declared criminal—to join us in this public information and legal campaign.
Leonid Volkov will talk more about it in today’s broadcast of Russia of the Future.