Experimental blackmail

The Ministry of Internal Affairs wants to receive the right to provoke a bribe to any official as it became known to the "Gazeta", the Ministry of Internal Affairs is being prepared in the law "On operational-search activities". The document proposes to "remove restrictions on an operational experiment to identify and disclose corruption offenses committed by officials, including performing managerial functions in commercial and other organizations." The discussion of the bill may be held on February 8 at a meeting of the expanded college of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, at which the Russian president is often present.

According to a source of Gazeta in the State Duma Security Committee, a new amendment, if it enters into force, will allow detectives to provoke even officials responsible for making the most minor decisions to a bribe. For example, the issuance of certificates of registration of land or loan.

In the current edition of the Federal Law "On Operational Investigation", the operational experiment is allowed to apply only to the suspects in the preparation or commitment of serious and especially serious crimes.

The head of the press service of the Department of Economic Security (Deb) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Andrei Pilipchuk confirmed the newspaper correspondent that the bill is being prepared at once in two divisions of the ministry: in the DEB and in the Department of Combat Organizational and Terrorism. “I think that we are talking about lifting restrictions on conducting an operational experiment in relation to corruption crimes of small and medium gravity, if officials are suspects,” said Pilipchuk.

In the law community, the idea caused a sharp protest. “Six months ago, lawmakers allowed the operatives to listen to the telephone conversations of suspects in not too serious crimes, now they are going to resolve and provocations,” lawyer Yevgeny Chernousov told the newspaper correspondent. - Thus, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is on the path of facilitating life for its employees and their professional degradation. This bill requires a clear justification of the need for such tightening. Let them prove with the numbers on their hands how many cases fell due to the impossibility of conducting an experiment. ”

Chernousov believes that the initiative of the ministry also needs a serious anti -corruption examination. After all, spaces of federal law will easily use unscrupulous operatives who can keep entire departments in fear.

Operational experiments have long been used in the UK and the USA. The American Federal Tax Administration conducts an average of a hundred of operational experiments per year. So, back in the 1980s, the US FBI agents under the guise of Arab Sheikhs offered several members of the Congress a bribe of tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for various benefits. The case ended with a loud trial.

In the corridors of the Russian parliament, such ideas have been hiding for a long time. In 2007, the bill did not reach the second reading, allowing an operational experiment in respect of suspects of an extremist orientation crimes. Parliamentarians explain this by the fact that the amendments did not receive approval in the presidential administration. The deputy chairman of the Security Committee Colonel of the FSB reserve Gennady Gudkov is wary of the new idea of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “For several years now, such initiatives have not received a positive decision of the lower house,” Gudkov said in an interview with Gazeta. “First of all, this happened due to counteraction by lawyers who feared the excess of authority by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”

According to Yevgeny Chernousov, in recent years, more and more cases built on the “experiment” have been entered into Russian courts. The European Court of Human Rights, which then protests the decision made using the provocation, even demanded from Russian legislators amendments that limit its application. The new plan of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, if he receives approval in the government and parliament,, according to the lawyer, is more likely to reduce these efforts to zero.

The President of the Russian Section of the International Human Rights Society Vladimir Novitsky also believes that although such a practice already exists in the Anglo-American legal system, it is flawed both from an ethical point of view and with the procedural one.

01/21/2008 / Olga Pavlikova, the material was published in the newspaper No. 10 of 01.22.2008.