The authority was given a deadline

They waited almost a month and a half for this verdict. Of course - in the dock is Artur Kzhizhevich - a legendary personality, about whom law enforcement officers and journalists spoke only as an “authority”, one of the leaders of the “Kazan”. He and seven other people: Igors Masalskis, Ramil Gilmanov, Rinat Garipov, Rafael Fakhrutdinov, Alexander Voronin, Yuri Kleshchev and Sergei Pirogov - were accused of creating and participating in an organized criminal community. In addition, the investigation accused Kzhizhevich of organizing, and his comrades in the dock - of directly carrying out a number of serious crimes: murder, extortion, attempted kidnapping, deliberate destruction of someone else's property. The most notorious of these crimes is the brutal and cynical massacre in the Ladoga skerries in the fall of 2003 against businessman Pavel Kirillov, FSB officer Konstantin Nagorny and head of the hotel management department under the administration of St. Petersburg Alexei Kurnikov.

Let’s say right away: the verdict, pronounced on June 14 in the Leningrad Regional Court, did not suit both sides of the trial. Both the defense and the prosecution intend to appeal. Of course, each side has their own reasons.
Let's start with the fact that the main charge, uniting all the defendants in an “organized criminal community,” according to the court, did not find sufficient evidence. There may be several reasons: a rather complex system of evidence for the presence of organized crime, and the poor quality of the investigation, which has already become the talk of the town in St. Petersburg. And just playing sports together and the fact of mutual acquaintance was not enough for a loan, although “the presence of preliminary agreements to commit criminal acts” was still recognized.
In addition, Artur Kzhizhevich, accused as the organizer of extortion from businessman Anton Dorofeev, the attempted kidnapping of “economic consultant” Sergei Zakharov and the murder of Maxim Suslin, who had quarreled with him at a tourist center near Losevo, was acquitted of these crimes due to lack of evidence.
But the reprisal in Ladoga against a businessman, an official and a special service agent, according to the court, was fully proven; Artur Kzhizhevich was recognized as the organizer of the crime. Let us recall that on September 5, 2003, between the islands of Northern Ladoga Heinyasenma and Rahmansari, not far from Lahdenpokhya, the boat on which Kzhizhevich was resting with his people met a much more “sophisticated” boat of Kirillov. The boat of Kirillov, Nagorny and Kournikov, “Silver Eagle Star Cabin”, was first simply boarded, and its passengers were beaten. However, having learned that Nagorny was an FSB officer, they decided not to leave such dangerous witnesses. The victims were finished off with knives. In addition, Nagorny was shot three times in the head with a TT pistol taken from fishery inspector Kozlov, who was on Kzhizhevich’s boat. The bodies were thrown into the water, and the boat of the dead was doused with gasoline and set on fire. It was shortly after this that Kzhizevich and his men were arrested.
According to the court verdict, Artur Kzhizhevich received 19 years in a maximum security colony, his accomplices received from 7 to 18 years in maximum security.

Alexander SAMOILOV