Well, this is just lovely. A textbook example of how criminal cases are fabricated. Today, the Leninsky District Court in the city of Kirov handed down a sentence to “Navalny’s accomplice” in the Kirovles case: 4 years suspended.
That same Opalev, whom I fired. The one the company’s owner tried to have prosecuted. No case was opened, but Opalev filed a complaint saying that I had pressured him into signing an unfavorable contract, causing the company losses of 1.3 million rubles. Here is the heart-rending video recorded and circulated by Kremlin PR operatives. Then, when the investigators realized the case was falling apart, and that 1.3 million rubles (losses, not theft) was not an impressive enough figure, he rewrote his statement for them: saying that no one had forced him to do anything, and that he had in fact been a member of a criminal group created by Navalny from the very beginning. The criminal group had intended to steal 16 million rubles. Where did that figure come from? Out of thin air. There was not a single expert assessment to support it. The simple plan was obvious: a full confession is the queen of evidence. Why bother with expert analysis and digging through the numbers when you have a crook (Opalev, by the way, had previously faced criminal charges) willing to confess to absolutely anything in exchange for a suspended sentence. And there you have your prejudicial effect. I described this scenario in detail several months ago. So here’s what happened. They started the hearing today at 9 a.m.; by 11:15 it was already over. At 3 p.m. the verdict was announced. That’s all it took. No expert assessment, no injured party. The guy simply pleaded guilty: yes, I was a member of a criminal group created by Navalny. We stole 16 million. Guilty. 4 years suspended. Free to go. Taking into account his guilty plea and, so to speak, cooperation with the investigation. They don’t need anything else from you. The main thing is that now there’s a piece of paper saying it has been established that the criminal group stole 16 million. No need to dig through invoices. Previous expert assessments can be ignored. And finally, the most wonderful part of all. With this new case opened today, everyone was asking: how can this happen without an injured party? It’s absurd. Belykh says: this is all absurd. Gozman and SPS say: this is all absurd. How is that possible? Like this: As for today’s announcement that yet another criminal case has been opened, and the reaction to it from the former leadership of the Union of Right Forces party (SPS), it should be explained that a political party is not, by its legal form, a commercial organization, and therefore the law allows a criminal case to be opened without a complaint from an injured party. http://sledcom.ru/actual/272870/ Brilliant. These are the consequences of “Medvedev’s liberalization of the Criminal Code.” To stop police-raiders from opening fake fraud cases under Article 159, they wrote “only upon the complaint of a commercial organization.” But SPS is a non-commercial organization. Bastrykin and Co. deserve a mega-prize as the finest interpreters of the Criminal Procedure Code. Now they can conveniently open criminal cases on behalf of Greenpeace too, without paying any attention to Greenpeace’s outraged statements. And the best part would be if the Investigative Committee opened a case supposedly to protect the Anti-Corruption Foundation from me. Why not? It’s a non-profit organization, so no complaint is required. I collected money for RosPil by fraudulent means, and then laundered the funds by paying salaries to my accomplices.