Periscope No. 30

Court | Jury verdict

The jurors participating in the case of the murder of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Andrey Kozlov had a black streak. On July 10, juror No. 12, electrician Sergei Levin, was removed from the trial, in which the banker Alexei Frenkel is the main defendant, who allegedly tried to bribe three reserve jurors: he offered them 1,500 rubles each. for leaving the board. On the same day, juror No. 5 Alexander Popov and juror No. 7 Vladimir Gershuni were taken to the police - formally because the men drank beer in the courtyard of a residential building not far from the Moscow City Court. In the police, the assessors were asked in detail about the course of the closed process, their positions, and after that they sent a “paper” to the court: Popov and Gershuni, as violators of public order, were removed from participation in the process. The retirees admitted to journalists that they, like the suspended Levin, questioned the guilt of the defendants. Meanwhile, the scandal was gaining momentum: a criminal case was opened against Sergei Levin under the article “obstruction of the administration of justice through the use of his official position,” and several jurors, as Newsweek was told by the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office, were seized during searches “evidence that they received large sums of money - bank cards and savings books. “In such a situation, any juror cannot be independent, he can be illegally detained and interrogated, despite the immunity due by law,” Ruslan Koblev, Alexei Frenkel's lawyer, told Newsweek. In this regard, representatives of the defense filed a motion to challenge the jury, but Judge Natalya Olikhver rejected it. “It turns out that in Russia a jury trial is a controlled tool,” Koblev wonders. “In the process, the accused have not yet been interrogated, the arguments of the parties have not begun, and the jury, as we learn from the newspapers, have already divided and decided on a verdict.” In the case of the murder in September 2006 of Andrey Kozlov, seven people are involved, the banker Alexei Frenkel is the alleged customer of this crime. PAVEL SEDAKOV

Personnel | Changing places of terms

There was an unscheduled replacement at the White House last Thursday. The head of the Department of Economics and Finance, Anton Drozdov, left the government apparatus - now he will head the Pension Fund. Instead, Andrey Belousov, who worked as Deputy Minister of Economic Development, moved to the office of Vladimir Putin. Experts unanimously speak about the weakening of the Ministry of Economic Development, the government indirectly confirms this, saying that Andrei Belousov was needed in the apparatus to strengthen the “analytical and summary function” of the cabinet. As Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economic Development from February 2006 to June 2008, Andrei Belousov oversaw the macroeconomic block, he was one of the main lobbyists for active state investment in the economy. Newsweek sources in the Ministry of Economy confirm that no one knew in advance about Belousov's departure, and this came as a surprise to everyone. Therefore, in particular, it is still unclear who will replace Belousov in the ministry - no one has yet searched for candidates for the post of deputy minister. The scientific director of the Center for Social Research and Innovation, Yevgeny Gontmakher, agrees that Belousov's departure is a weakening of the Ministry of Economic Development. “He was one of the key deputy ministers, and there are no objective reasons for such a move - these are hardware games,” the expert says, noting that Drozdov's transfer does not raise any questions. “He wanted to change his job for a long time (Anton Drozdov worked in the government apparatus for nine years, since the time of Mikhail Kasyanov), and at one time he was in charge of the social sphere in the Ministry of Finance.” The position of an employee of the government apparatus usually does not involve much publicity, but Anton Drozdov managed to become famous when Viktor Zubkov headed the government in September last year. At the very first meeting of the Cabinet, devoted to the restoration work in the city of Nevelsk, which suffered from an earthquake in August, it turned out that the budget money had not been received there. Anton Drozdov was noisily sent into "perpetual exile" to Sakhalin - to control the financing process. DARIA GUSEVA

Church | No peace, no war

The disgraced Bishop of Anadyr and Chukotka Diomedes did not wait for his ordination and last week anathematized Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II, head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, his predecessor as chairman of the department, now Metropolitan of Minsk and Slutsky Filaret, as well as "all their predecessors who participated in the anti-monarchist February 1917 revolt and all who think with them." Diomede accused the participants of the recent Council of Bishops of confessing the heresies of royal strife and ecumenism, as well as of supporting "anti-people power, under which, according to official figures, 900,000 people die every year in Russia." Diomede refused to communicate with any of the participants in the Council of Bishops and called on his supporters to do the same. “It is unlikely that the speech of Diomede is a big threat for the ROC. For many believers who sympathize with Diomede, there is a limit that they can reach, but which is difficult for them to cross, says Alexei Makarkin, deputy general director of the Center for Political Technologies. - Now Diomede puts himself outside the church. And many of his supporters find it difficult to follow him. They can sympathize with him, consider that he suffered for the truth. But to take a decisive step, saying that “I do not recognize the patriarch, I place myself outside the church,” would mean that they would not be able to come to their church.” The same with the priests: after following Diomede, they will have to leave their churches, since they belong to the Moscow Patriarchate. “Although someone will follow him anyway, there will be few of them,” the political scientist sums up. As an example, Makarkin recalls how many Moscow churches opposed the introduction of the TIN, believing that this was a harmful anti-Christian phenomenon - as a result, only one refused to accept the TIN. “Diomede will probably be excommunicated, and he will join the ranks of alternative Orthodoxy,” Makarkin believes. “We have many marginal “Orthodox” organizations, each of whose members considers himself the most Orthodox.” On June 28, the rebellious bishop was removed from the administration of his diocese "for schismatic activities and disobedience to the hierarchy." Then it was decided to defrock the bishop at a meeting of the Holy Synod on July 17, if Diomede refuses to repent. But the ROC decided to give the bishop time to change his mind and postponed the meeting to September 2. Now the diocese of Anadyr and Chukotka is temporarily ruled by Archbishop Mark of Khabarovsk and Amur instead of Diomede. Diomede, on the other hand, departed for the village of Cape Schmidt in the north of Chukotka, which can be reached by helicopter only once every two weeks. ELENA MUHAMETSHINA

Royal manners

The research company "Bashkirova and Partners" conducted a survey of Muscovites, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the execution of the royal family. It turned out that the majority of those surveyed condemn the execution of Nicholas II and his family, while about 30% are in favor of the restoration of the monarchy in Russia. When asked which of the politicians of the XX-XXI centuries. most of all, in terms of the style of his reign, he resembles a tsar, 10% of Muscovites could not answer. Alexy II, Mikhail Fradkov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky were named 0.3% each.

Israel | Living and dead

The operation was called the "Return of the Sons" and the exchange of prisoners, and received two coffins with the remains - for identification by teeth. Israel until the last believed in a miracle: Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, soldiers abducted two years ago by the Lebanese Hezbollah group, will return home alive, wave at the border checkpoint at the cameras, and hug their relatives. Past the journalists, who spent the whole day at a closed border crossing, they brought two boxes of bones. And Hezbollah got everything it wanted from the very beginning. Terms of the deal: from Lebanon - Regev and Goldwasser, to Lebanon - 199 bodies of Palestinian and Lebanese militants, plus five living ones released from Israeli prisons. The German intermediary agreed on the exchange, the technical part (there are no direct contacts between Hezbollah and Israel) was taken over by the International Red Cross. Boxes were brought to the border, while the representative of Hezbollah, until the very last moment, until the coffins were shown on television, said that nothing was known about the condition of the captured Israelis. The main figure in the exchange is Samir Kuntar. In 1979, he and three other fighters made their way to Israel by sea from Lebanon. The militants broke into the first house they came across, killed three people, including a little girl. The child was 3.5 years old; as the investigation stated at the trial, Kuntar smashed her head with a rifle butt. Hezbollah is now calling that terrorist attack a "military operation" and the border town a "military garrison." In Beirut, Kuntar was greeted by thousands of Hezbollah supporters; Lebanon celebrated the victory over the "Zionist enemy" for several days. President Michel Suleiman and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah greeted Kuntar with speeches: the former prisoner is now a "symbol of resistance." “How can they be glad that they freed this child murderer? They gave hundreds of lives of their best fighters for his freedom, unleashed a whole war. Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of Ehud Goldwasser, also believed until the last moment that a miracle would happen and his son would return alive: “When the war began, we were told that it was coming in order to return our sons. Even then I understood that this was not so: prisoners were never returned in the war; prisoners are returned only when the war is over.” The prisoners were returned to Hezbollah, the war, two years after the conclusion of the ceasefire agreement, seems to have ended, and Israel will now be in a fever. Because, on the one hand, there is a moral duty to return the soldiers home, whether alive or dead, and on the other, an incredibly heavy price that had to be paid, and the question is: why did they fight two years ago? “Another consequence is that the kidnappers may now decide that it is not necessary to save the lives of the hostages,” a source close to the Israeli intelligence services told Newsweek. SVETLANA PRIMAKOVA

Rights | The song helps to live

The European Union is going to extend the term of copyright for musical works - from the current 50 to 95 years: last week, the European Commission developed amendments providing for an increase in the term for paying royalties. After the adoption of this bill, authors and performers will receive royalties throughout their lives - on average, the annual fee can range from €150 to €2,000 for each song. The main lobbyists for the amendments were the stars themselves, who believe that an increase in the term of copyright is their only guarantee for a comfortable old age after the end of their careers. 68-year-old Cliff Richard was the first to speak about the necessary changes: according to the old law, he will no longer receive money for his first hit Move It this year. The colleague was supported by Paul McCartney and members of the groups U2, The Who and Bee Gees. The law was also supported by the well-known record company EMI, whose rights to the early works of The Beatles expire in 2012. The company explained that the increase in the payment period is “simply due to time.” Mary Crisleyroad of EMI's press office told Newsweek that musicians, songwriters and record companies are already suffering huge losses due to Internet piracy - they now receive much less money for their work than in the pre-computer era. “Besides, medicine does not stand still, all of them [musicians] just began to live longer,” she laughs. - And it seems to me that they have earned the right to live well. They brightened up our loneliness for so many years. Voting on the amendments should take place closer to the fall. In America, a similar bill was passed in 1998. VERA COOL