Today is really turning into a full-on day of news from the "Man and the Law" (a well-known Russian TV/legal-affairs label) section. The cassation appeal in the Pussy Riot case, over their especially dangerous extremist statement: "Mother of God, drive Putin away." The criminal case against Dagir Khasavov has been dropped, despite his mild and friendly brand of extremism: "We Muslims will establish our own rules, and if you don't like it, we'll flood Moscow with blood." Despite the feeble protests of the small Russian diaspora of the city of Moscow, the Dagestanis who fired into the air and at surrounding cars (including traffic police vehicles) from their lovely wedding motorcade led by a Ferrari have been sent home with a fine of 100 (one hundred) rubles. This single episode completely changes our understanding of what hooliganism and anti-social behavior actually are. And everyone keeps asking me about the "shocking confession of an accomplice," which the newspaper Investigative Committee Herald wrote about on Friday: Former director of the state-owned enterprise Kirovles, Vyacheslav Opalev, who along with opposition figure Alexei Navalny is accused of stealing 10,000 cubic meters of timber products in the Kirov Region worth more than 16 million rubles, has entered into a deal with the investigation. He is prepared to tell investigators the details of this scam and each participant's role in it, including Navalny's, in exchange for a lighter sentence. The Investigative Committee has already sent the deal materials to the Prosecutor General's Office for approval. Initially, former Kirovles head Vyacheslav Opalev was considered the prosecution's main witness. It was on the basis of his statement that the investigation against former director of the Vyatka Timber Company Pyotr Ofitserov and Alexei Navalny was launched. Opalev provided investigators with all the necessary documentary evidence, but in July 2012 he himself became a defendant in the case. According to Izvestia, Vyacheslav Opalev entered into a deal with the investigation under which he is prepared to describe the details of the scam and testify against all of its participants. In that case, he may count on a lighter sentence—two-thirds of the maximum term provided for under this article. Let me explain:
Nothing especially surprising here. We were waiting for this to happen, and the whole logic of the investigation and prosecution was leading in this direction. Let me remind you that the entire case is built on the testimony of Kirovles director Opalev, whose dismissal I had sought and against whom a criminal case had been opened for abuse of office. It just so happened that the case against Opalev was closed, after which (SUDDENLY) his accusations against me appeared. Something like: "Navalny pressured me and forced me to sell products at below-market prices, so we suffered damages of 1 million rubles." They agonized over that 1 million rubles for a long time. They opened a case and investigated it for ages. At the same time, there was a PR campaign: look what a nice little woodland fellow he is, Navalny tormented and coerced him. Let's protect poor Opalev. They recorded and circulated videos like this and all sorts of interviews.
http://youtu.be/CSQ7lud_I3E It all came to nothing, the case fell apart, the charges were dropped, and my right to rehabilitation after unlawful criminal prosecution was recognized. But after May 6, as they say, "new circumstances arose": people were getting too rowdy. And on top of that, they had uncovered a foreign agent. The Investigative Committee got its instructions and started carrying them out. The previous charge—"causing 1 million rubles in damage without signs of theft"—was apparently no longer serious enough, so they came up with "the theft of 16 million rubles as part of an organized criminal group". Up to 10 years in prison. No accounting or financial-economic expert examinations were conducted, or even ordered. The "16 million" figure was simply pulled out of thin air, and we kept wondering how they were going to justify it, because it was complete nonsense. Now everything has fallen into place. The FSB, which is providing operational support for this case, pulls this Opalev out of mothballs. I don't know what kind of kompromat they have on him, but this time they taught him to say something different: "I am a member of Navalny's criminal group, created to steal 16 million rubles." The question of how this means he must have been giving false testimony for three years straight is gently ignored. Opalev "confesses to everything." His case is split off into a special fast-track procedure and sent to court, where he is convicted very quickly, without any of those expert-reports-schmexpert-reports. Because "confession is the queen of evidence," as Comrade Vyshinsky (the chief Stalin-era prosecutor) liked to say. Opalev gets a one-year suspended sentence (or whatever they agreed on), all his sins are forgiven, he is handed a barrel of jam and a basket of cookies, and then he goes home. The investigators start waving his conviction around and constantly using the word "preclusion": Circumstances established by a final and legally binding verdict, or by another final and legally binding court decision issued in civil, commercial-arbitration, or administrative proceedings, are recognized by the court, prosecutor, investigator, and inquirer without additional verification. What expert examinations? What review of evidence? We haven't heard anything about motive, or the objective and subjective elements of the offense. It says right there: he was a participant in a criminal group organized by citizen Navalny for the theft of 16 million rubles. And there is the judge's signature and seal. Everything has already been proven. Of course, Article 90 of the Criminal Procedure Code contains a small addition: "such a verdict or decision may not predetermine the guilt of persons who did not previously participate in the criminal case under consideration," but that's in small print, so it can be ignored. So that, basically, is the whole cunning plan of little piglet Bastrykin. Nothing new, really. This is exactly how they are now trying to prove "mass riots" in the May 6 case. They pressured one person into confessing, "yes, I took part in mass riots," split his case into separate proceedings, they will convict him quickly, and everyone else will get preclusion: the fact of mass riots has already been established. Here, look: One Ch*ikov a**llows for the possibility that the cases of the defendants in the "Bolotnaya case" (the prosecutions over the Bolotnaya Square protest) will be split into separate proceedings. "Most likely, the first one to go will be the person who admitted guilt. This will be accompanied by some terrifying video showing a demonstrator beating riot police officers. The other defendants will go after the first verdict enters into force, and mass riots become preclusion (preclusion means that all courts hearing the case must accept, without review or evidence, facts previously established by a final court ruling in another case. — Gazeta.Ru). That means the investigation won't even have to prove mass riots. Besides, with separate trials there is less noise, and by the fourth trial public interest in the case will have disappeared." Two T*he Russian Investigative Committee has split into separate proceedings the criminal cases against two participants in the May 6 "riots" on Bolotnaya Square. This was reported on the Investigative Committee's website. * Well, at least the imagination of the Investigative Committee and the FSB hasn't yet gone so far that Opalev will confess: I killed and robbed an old woman, here's the axe, Navalny gave it to me, I confess to everything. *Our strategy remains the same. We demand at least some evidence besides the testimony of their Opalev, and above all we demand an independent forensic accounting examination. Even the previous fake expert report—which we would have torn to shreds—never got further than inventing 1.2 million, and then 0.58 million rubles in "damages."
And here it's 16 million with no expert examination at all. Anyone with the case materials and a calculator in hand will understand in 10 minutes that this is a fabrication. That's how things stand. PS A reminder that each of us can easily and effectively tell our neighbors who is really in charge of the Investigative Committee in Russia. A small thing, but satisfying.