The ECHR has sent a letter confirming the registration of our complaint in the ACF case. It is enormous—the largest I have ever seen and, I think, one of the largest the court has ever handled. But it could hardly have been otherwise: the case involves hundreds of people, and the simultaneous searches of hundreds of people across dozens of regions were the largest one-time “operation” by the security services since the 1930s.
The fact that the ECHR accepted it means that the court reviewed the complaint in terms of both formal requirements and substance, and found it admissible at this stage.
Let me remind you that on August 3 of last year, during a rally, the Investigative Committee published a press release announcing the opening of the “ACF case.”
The Investigative Committee stated that “unidentified persons, including ACF employees, acting as a group by prior conspiracy, received cash funds from unidentified third parties in Russian and foreign currency in the amount of no less than 75,585,300.21 rubles (about 75.6 million rubles), which they knew had been obtained through criminal means.” “These unidentified persons, including ACF employees, in order to give the funds an appearance of legality, deposited them into ACF accounts through ATMs.”
Over a year of this so-called “investigation,” the following took place:
- more than 300 searches of ACF employees, Navalny headquarters staff, volunteers, and their relatives;
- more than 290 bank accounts belonging to individuals and legal entities were frozen, with nearly 60 million rubles seized;
- even 2 construction and technical examinations and 2 economic expert assessments were ordered!
In substance, this enormous case contains no evidence of any crime at all; it is entirely fabricated. The only reason the investigators consider 130 people to be involved in money laundering is that they are—don’t laugh—members of Navalny’s headquarters:
In other words, no one is even denying that this prosecution is purely political. We made that clear in the complaint, and the ECHR has taken an interest. We’ll keep you updated—don’t forget to support us.