At first I wanted to write that my correspondence with the Prosecutor General’s Office about the Magnitsky case was like talking to a deaf person. But then I realized that this correspondence is exactly what correspondence with the Prosecutor General’s Office is like. In other words, it’s like corresponding with some uniformed thug so drunk on his own impunity that his job is to lie, wriggle, break the law, and cover for himself, the cops, the authorities in general, and everyone connected to them.
The first installment was here. So I write to them: check the facts published in the media about the involvement of specifically named officers of the FSB, SVR, and Interior Ministry in extorting especially large bribes. They reply: Magnitsky was lawfully prosecuted, and a case has been opened over the failure to provide medical care. But I’m not interested in the failure to provide care at all. That was already the tragic ending. As if I hadn’t asked about anything else, and hadn’t cited passages like “The money was delivered to the FSB’s Directorate K,” a knowledgeable Interior Ministry source told The New Times. “The price was $6 million. The security officers supervised the process, while the actual implementation was entrusted to investigators from the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee.” More precisely, to investigator Oleg Silchenko. A. I. Pechegin seems to have some kind of vision problem. He sees part of the text, but not the rest. Let me note, dear friends, that the “Magnitsky case” is probably the most high-profile criminal case in the country, apart from the Khodorkovsky case. Putin has spoken about it publicly, and so has Medvedev. The latter even expressed outrage and wagged his finger, earning applause from the pro-modernization public and enthusiastic ladies. But in substance (if we leave aside the Federal Penitentiary Service story, which was long overdue), nothing has happened. That is, the issue of the cops who stole 5 billion rubles and jailed Magnitsky, who had been investigating it remains exactly where it was. There has been no investigation. The cops have been promoted. And there hasn’t even been much effort to bury the case. A. I. Pechegin from the Prosecutor General’s Office just mindlessly sends out standard replies. And the most interesting part is that after my first post on this subject, the TV journalist Olga Romanova, mentioned in the New Times article, got in touch with me. She fully confirmed everything described there and said she was ready to testify against these uniformed crooks in any court and give evidence anywhere. She will explain how bribes were demanded and how pressure was applied. She will name names directly and clearly. A woman named Yekaterina Mikheyeva also contacted me. In her case, the cops who later surfaced in the “Magnitsky case” simply kidnapped her husband. They took him straight from an interrogation to a country house outside Moscow, where they demanded a ransom of several million dollars. Her husband was freed by SOBR (a Russian special rapid-response police unit) in a raid, with doors being broken down and the whole works, but the kidnapping case conveniently evaporated thanks to another A. I. Pechegin. It turned out, apparently, that the husband had taken himself away, locked himself up, and demanded money from himself. An extremely interesting account of this story appeared in Ogonyok. It would seem all the ingredients for a successful investigation are there: Public outrage — there it is. Furious press coverage — there it is. Victims/plaintiffs — there they are. Prosecution witnesses — there they are. Names of suspects — there they are. A presidential order to look into it — that’s there too. Right here. But A. I. Pechegin and his friends in the prosecutor’s office and the Interior Ministry couldn’t care less about any of them — from the President down to the newspapers and magazines. Which is hardly surprising. The guys who skimmed off 5 billion probably have more persuasive arguments. As the saying goes: I’ll keep quiet, but my friends will speak for me — dead presidents. By the way, there should soon be a court hearing on the Prosecutor’s Office’s very first reply as well. We appealed it. We’ll see — maybe something interesting will come of it.