Translated material
VIP verdict
The jury found Alexey Frenkel guilty
In the Moscow City Court yesterday, a jury unanimously found the former head of the capital's VIP bank, Alexei Frenkel, guilty of organizing the murder of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation , Andrei Kozlov, who was shot dead in September 2006 . The people's judges also found the other defendants in this high-profile case guilty. It is noteworthy that of all seven defendants, the jury found only two direct participants in the organization of the murder worthy of leniency.Immediately after the verdict was announced, the state prosecutor said that she was satisfied with the result of the trial, calling it “the triumph of justice.” However, it is very likely that this “triumph” will not be final. Throughout the eight months that the trial lasted, it was accompanied by incessant scandals, and a significant part of them were connected specifically with the jury. According to the law, a sentence passed on the basis of a jury verdict can be overturned only if procedural violations were committed during the trial. And any incidents with the jury can be assessed in exactly this way, and the defense of the defendants did not hide the fact that they would definitely take advantage of this.
However, it is still unknown when the verdict will be pronounced. Only a discussion of the consequences of the verdict is scheduled for Thursday, during which the prosecutor will announce the terms of punishment that, in his opinion, the defendants deserve, and the defense will express their thoughts. Only after this the judge will leave to make a final decision.
According to the investigation, which the jury agreed with, Alexey Frenkel planned the murder of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in the summer of 2006. Then the VIP bank, which was headed by Mr. Frenkel, had its license revoked . The basis for this was suspicions that the bank had violated anti-money laundering legislation, compliance with which was monitored by the Central Bank by Mr. Kozlov. The revocation of the license was the last link in a series of “suggestions” to the VIP bank from the Central Bank. Before this, the bank was warned several times, and then they also refused to accept it into the Deposit Insurance System. Somewhat earlier, a similar fate befell two more capital banks - Orion and RZB, in which, as the investigation believes, Frenkel “had his own interest.” As a result, according to the prosecution, Frenkel, who suffered huge losses, decided to “eliminate” Andrei Kozlov as the cause of his troubles.
Realizing his criminal intention, as the investigators of the Prosecutor General’s Office and then the Investigative Committee who were involved in this case considered, Mr. Frenkel shared his plans with the owner of the Trish restaurant, Liana Askerova . She, in turn, conveyed a “request for help” to her friend Boris Shafrai, and he shared the problem with a “specialist” in debt collection, Bogdan Pogorzhevsky. The latter previously lived in Lugansk (Ukraine) and, according to the investigation, found the perpetrators of the murder among his fellow countrymen , who also moved to Moscow. They were Alexey Polovinkin, Maxim Proglyada and Alexander Belokopytov.
As follows from the case materials, information about Mr. Kozlov - his addresses, car license plates, daily schedule, etc., was transmitted through this chain at least twice. At first, the killers simply could not track down the victim - either their Zhiguli could not keep up with the official Mercedes of the deputy head of the Central Bank, or they were waiting for him in the wrong place. The prosecutor called it a happy coincidence that the “order” did not overtake Mr. Kozlov on August 12, 2006, when he was vacationing with his wife and daughter in one of the sanatoriums in the Pskov region. However, on the evening of September 13, 2006, the killers were still able to track down Mr. Kozlov near the Spartak complex in Sokolniki, where he was playing football with friends. As Mr. Kozlov stepped outside and headed toward his car, he was shot twice in the head. This was done, as investigators believe, by Alexey Polovinkin. Maxim Proglyada is believed to have shot at the driver Semenov, who jumped out of the car in response to the noise. As a result, the driver died on the spot, and Mr. Kozlov died later in the hospital.
According to the investigation, all the criminals received rewards from Frenkel for their “work.” Askerova kept $80 thousand for her mediation; Pogorzhevsky received $200 thousand. Of this amount, he paid $8.5 thousand each to Polovinkin and Proglyada, and another $3 thousand to Belokopytov. The only one who was not caught receiving money was Boris Shafrai.
How the investigation came to know the killers was never explained during the trial. The prosecution only presented evidence of their guilt. But, according to unofficial information that appeared in the first days after the murder, one of the killers, having learned from television news who he actually shot, and fearing that they might now “remove” him too, came to the police himself. His testimony, apparently, helped identify the remaining participants in the crime. Alexey Frenkel himself was the last to be detained on January 11, 2007. He was charged with organizing the murder, the others shared the roles of intermediaries and executors.
The trial in the Moscow City Court began in early March of this year . And although it took the prosecutor only 19 minutes to present the plot of the case, the case did not promise to be easy from the very beginning. Thus, presiding judge Natalya Olikhver initially supplemented the main jury with ten reserve jurors, although usually they are limited to two or three, which everyone regarded as her firm intention to complete the case the first time.
After the first three hearings, the judge transferred the court hearings to closed mode, explaining this to ensure the safety of Mr. Kozlov’s widow, who had allegedly received threats, and then completely forbade all participants in the process to communicate with the press. Nevertheless, scandalous details of the case continued to leak into the press.
So, almost immediately a conflict arose between Alexey Frenkel himself and the chairwoman Natalya Olikhver. The banker, according to his lawyers, having an excellent memory, constantly tried to analyze the investigation materials in detail, finding inconsistencies and contradictions in them and thus proving the absurdity of the charges. The judge, in turn, considered his statements irrelevant to the case and periodically removed him from the courtroom for disturbing the order, since the banker refused to shut up. Once it even got to the point that, as a sign of solidarity with Frenkel, all seven defendants refused to leave the cell and go up to the courtroom. As a result, the banker set a kind of record both in the number of “removals” and in the time spent in the punishment cell during court hearings (75 days).
The second problem of the trial was the jury. In July, three assessors left the board due to a scandal . At first, the jury foreman was suspected of trying to persuade his colleagues to leave the trial for 5 thousand rubles. Thus, as follows from his explanations, he hoped to increase the payment of monetary compensation to the remaining assessors. This looked very strange, since the amount paid to the assessors for their work was in no way related to their number. The “departure” of two more assessors looked no less strange. It was officially reported that they were detained by the police for drinking beer on the street. But then it turned out that they were actually detained 1.5 km from the place of the alleged offense, and in addition, a criminal case was opened against them for attempting to bribe the jury. What actually happened remained a mystery - after a number of loud statements, no one else remembered this case, but the jury was recused. And it was recently discovered that there were only two spare jurors left in the case. It was never reported where the rest went.
Another scandal arose at the end of the trial. The defense was finishing presenting evidence when one of the lawyers, according to him, accidentally left a working voice recorder in the courtroom during a break. Having listened to the tape later, he discovered a recording made just during a break of a conversation between two women on the topic of the trial, whose voices were very similar to the voices of the presiding judge and one of the assessors. The lawyers demanded the recusal of both, but the case ended with the prosecutor demanding that a criminal case be opened for “obstruction of justice” against the forgetful lawyer. This scandal was not resolved before the end of the trial, but, undoubtedly, the defense of the defendants will use it as a compelling argument to overturn the verdict.
The latest misunderstanding with the jury happened yesterday. The presiding judge was finishing her parting words to the jury, who were already preparing to leave to pronounce a verdict, but she was stopped by the prosecutor's request to disqualify another juror. The reason was that, according to the prosecutor, she saw in the morning on the way to court a woman on Budyonny Avenue talking with strangers. Neither the topic of the conversation nor the identity of the “outsiders” who spoke with the juror were indicated in the petition (by law, jurors are prohibited from discussing only the progress of the trial with outsiders, but it is impossible to prohibit them from talking at all), but nevertheless the juror was recused.
12 assessors went to the deliberation room, no longer having a single spare. They had to answer 30 questions related to the murder of Andrei Kozlov and the role of each of the defendants in it. After just five hours, by a majority vote, the board considered that the investigation was able to prove Frenkel’s involvement in the murder. And the board unanimously decided that Frenkel was guilty of organizing the murder, as well as that the banker did not deserve leniency. The jury also found the other six defendants in the case guilty.
True, according to their decision, two of the three direct participants in organizing the murder turned out to deserve leniency - Bogdan Pogorzhevsky and Alexander Belokopytov. By the way, the latter was cleared of charges related to the illegal acquisition of weapons. In fact, this is the only victory for the lawyers in this trial; the jury confirmed all other charges.
As she left the courtroom yesterday, the state prosecutor said: “The eight months that we conducted the judicial investigation were hard work, but nevertheless, justice triumphed.” The lawyers, in turn, stated that “the trial took place with many procedural violations,” which will be the subject of proceedings in the cassation court.