The tired old joke "Navalny stole all the timber" is becoming reality. With a one-day delay, I was formally charged today. The document is astonishing and completely changes my understanding of this case. A bit of background: 1. My post "How Transneft Is Looted" was published on November 16, 2010. 2. Two weeks later, an "unnamed source in the Interior Ministry" appears: Blogger Alexei Navalny is involved in "a number of major commercial deals of a highly dubious nature," one member of the Russian Interior Ministry delegation in Washington told reporters during talks with U.S. law enforcement on anti-corruption cooperation. According to him, these deals are already being investigated by Russian authorities, ITAR-TASS reports. In addition, the Interior Ministry source, commenting on the blogger's public anti-corruption work, said that the internet is a place for making money. He explained that there is a "price list" online for placing compromising material, including on "sites that use anti-corruption rhetoric". http://newsru.com/russia/03dec2010/navalnij.html 3. Then, having gone through various options, the valiant politically charged police start fabricating the "Kirovles" case: ...the case against lawyer Alexei Navalny was transferred on December 3 from the Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for the Volga Federal District to the local Investigative Committee department. According to investigators, while serving as an adviser to the governor of Kirov Region, Navalny "through deception and abuse of trust" forced former Kirovles state enterprise director Vyacheslav Opalev to sign an unfavorable timber supply contract that caused the enterprise losses of 1.3 million rubles. http://navalny.livejournal.com/534593.html This is the first appearance of Opalev, whose testimony the case is built on.
I was supposedly coercing and forcing him. 4. Then comes a hellish series of the case being closed and reopened. It gets closed in Kirov, then at the Volga District level, and so on. Each time, Moscow overturns the decisions not to proceed. Here: http://navalny.livejournal.com/552874.html And here: http://navalny.livejournal.com/567860.html It's all very tedious, but at least Bocharik and Shestakov produced a video that I still watch when I'm in a bad mood:
http://youtu.be/4o5-6vgwgag 5. Tired of waiting, the subordinates of our Czech agent Bastrychkin finally open the case themselves in Moscow, at the very highest level (the Investigative Committee's Main Investigative Directorate), and as we later learned, they sent it to Kirov that very same day. This is an important point. Bastrykin's people shout that "the case was being sabotaged in Kirov, where Navalny has connections," but the fact is that we twice went to Moscow's Basmanny Court demanding that the case remain in Moscow for investigation. And those very investigators from the Main Investigative Directorate came to Basmanny Court and argued that the investigation had to be conducted only in Kirov. 6. The investigation goes on for several months; several dozen people are questioned, two expert reviews are conducted, and so on. They found nothing, the case was closed, and I was notified of my right to rehabilitation and reimbursement of all expenses:
7. Literally the next day, after I announced that the case had been closed, Investigative Committee spokesman Markin flashed his golden epaulettes, and the decision to close the case was reversed. 8. Bastrykin publicly throws a fit about the "closing of Navalny's case" right at an Investigative Committee board meeting. 9. I am charged. All this time, there has been an information campaign around the case: oh, Navalny forced poor Kirovles director Opalev to sell products through a company under his control, VLK. They even did an interview with Opalev and showed excerpts in the media:
http://youtu.be/CSQ7lud_I3E The entire case is built on the testimony of him and his daughter, who worked for him as commercial director. As recently as yesterday, LiveJournal promo featured a paid post with the heart-rending question: "So who stole the million: Navalny with the expensive watch, or Opalev in the old sweater?" Now here's a visual diagram so it's clear how everything worked. I drew it myself, so don't laugh:
Kirovles was effectively a monopoly in the regional timber sector. It was a state-owned unitary enterprise. As is often the case with state monopolies, it was drowning in debt and losses, with chronic wage arrears. By now, I think it has already been bankrupted. Kirovles had millions of logging plots of some kind; it cut this timber (mostly off the books, though some of it legally) and sold it to businesses within Kirov Region or to timber traders who hauled it away for resale. The products were distributed through 36 forestry units; no one knew their exact price. No one understood the production cost. On paper, warehouse inventories were worth hundreds of millions of rubles, but as later became clear, there was absolutely nothing there. So, VLK is a trader whose director, Ofitserov, had the misfortune of knowing me. Like everyone else who came to the region during the "boom" under the liberal market governor to work in timber, he was told: go to Kirovles and trade with them; they have plenty of product and no sales channels. So he did. As you can see, on a very small scale. Microscopic, really, compared with the size of the enterprise. That's exactly why I found it so funny when I heard the Investigative Committee claim that VLK bankrupted Kirovles. Here are the official investigation materials after two economic expert reviews:
But okay. The investigators had a figure of 1.2 million rubles, which let them shout, "Navalny stole a million." So. Now for the most interesting part. Here is the full text of the indictment I received today. Take a look.
SUDDENLY. It turns out I wasn't tormenting Kirovles director Opalev, wasn't torturing him, wasn't intimidating him into signing an unfavorable contract. None of that was true. It turns out he is my accomplice and a member of the criminal group that I created and led. And now I'm no longer charged under Article 165 — causing 1.2 million rubles in damages, punishable by up to five years in prison. Now it's Part 4 of Article 160 — embezzlement or misappropriation of 16 million rubles, punishable by up to ten years. Just wonderful. What really tops it off is the 16 million figure — they simply took the gross revenue. And apparently I stole all of it. Despite the fact that Kirovles received 14 million rubles for its products. But that doesn't matter, does it? "Misappropriated 16 million" sounds better on TV than the limp "caused 1 million in damages." There is no other way to explain that number. It's strange they didn't also say that those 10,000 cubic meters of timber products were stolen and hidden away. Then it would have come to 32 million rubles, which definitely sounds better than 16. No motive. No personal gain. The damages figure was pulled out of thin air. All the most important earlier testimony against me turned out to be false. The witness who gave false testimony turned out to be a member of my criminal syndicate. Unbelievable. And this was cobbled together by a whole team of three special-case investigators. At least I understand why they're fabricating a case against me. But poor Ofitserov has five children, and he is simply in shock over what's happening. The case is opened, the case is closed. They tell you you're cleared, and then two weeks later they bring charges that completely contradict the previous two-year investigation. A perfect illustration of how they can just grab a person off the street and accuse him of absolutely anything. No one in the Investigative Committee is embarrassed about it. So that's the charge. They still haven't given us the order reopening the investigation; the investigator officially refused. I've been placed under travel restrictions. I'm not going on vacation, and the Czech spy Bastrykin now has one more mortal enemy — my wife. Oh well, that just means I'll have more time to dig through documents about Mr. Bastrykin's shady dealings. To conclude, let me remind you that DMP must not stop for a single minute. http://foreignagent.mashina.org/ Go there, print the materials, distribute them. There have already been 27,500 downloads. Today someone (search me, I have no idea who) took DMP right into the Investigative Committee. Leaflets were found: right outside investigator Gurevich's office (the first head of the investigative team in the "Bolotnaya case" — the case over the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protest — who authorized all the searches and the first arrests)
On the balcony (a popular smoking spot)
and even in the Investigative Committee lobby, on their grand central display board:
Take part. It's the best response honest citizens can give to the vile spies fabricating criminal cases. If someone is putting up leaflets in the lobby of the Investigative Committee, then you can certainly put them up in your apartment building entrance. Right?