| Former heads of State Statistics Committee may become the highest-ranking prisoners The Moscow City Court yesterday handed down a verdict in the most scandalous corruption epic of the late 90s - the so-called “statisticians’ case.” The main defendants in this case were the leaders of the State Statistics Committee themselves - the former head of the committee Yuri Yurkov and the head of the Computer Center (CC) Boris Sahakyan. Their case progressed long and painfully; the entire process of its investigation and consideration in court lasted more than 5 years. As a result, the court's verdict turned out to be as unexpected as it was sensational. Both Mr. Yurkov and Mr. Sahakyan were found fully guilty and sentenced to real prison terms. The former head of the State Statistics Committee received 4.5 years in a maximum security colony, the head of the Computer Center - 4 years in a general regime colony.
The “statisticians’ case” was initiated by the Prosecutor General’s Office in the summer of 1998 based on the results of the development of the FSB. A total of 9 people were detained then, and investigators announced that during searches they seized cash and valuables worth $2.5 million from the accused.
According to the verdict handed down by federal judge Andrei Zubarev, the criminal group of “statisticians”, created and led by Boris Sahakyan, was engaged in the systematic theft and misappropriation of government funds. Of the articles of the Criminal Code that investigators charged him with (embezzlement, repeated taking and giving of bribes, commercial bribery), the court excluded only one from the charge (forgery of documents). At the same time, the court recognized the validity of the conclusions made by the prosecutor’s office that all this happened with the connivance of the head of the State Statistics Committee, Yurkov, who encouraged Sahakyan to give him large bribes, threatening him with demotion and actually covered up the activities of the group.
As stated in the verdict, the total amount of bribes Yuri Yurkov received from Boris Sahakyan amounted to 284,905 rubles. The main schemes for appropriating state money to “statisticians” were related to the work of the Computing Center. Its head entered into agreements for the provision of statistical information to various government agencies, in particular, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Ministry of Science, and FAPSI. The money under the agreements was transferred to the accounts of the Interregional Association “Statinform” created by Mr. Sahakyan. Then the funds under fictitious agreements were transferred to the accounts of shell companies and cashed out by “persons unidentified by the investigation, and then transferred to Sahakyan.” Only under agreements with the Ministry of Labor, 2.2 billion “old” rubles and 200 thousand “new” ones were appropriated under this scheme. Under similar agreements with FAPSI, Sahakyan and his deputy Salnikov, with the connivance of FAPSI employees Evgeny Gurov and Igor Storchevoy (the case against him was dropped due to his death), embezzled 365 million “old” rubles and 88 thousand “new” ones. It was also established that Boris Sahakyan, together with his deputy Zoya Denisenkova, repeatedly extorted money from entrepreneurs who rented premises in the building of the Exhibition Center at 44 Izmailovskoye Shosse. The businessmen were asked in an ultimatum form to pay for the rent in cash, otherwise their telephones or electricity would be turned off. The execution of official lease agreements by the administration of the VC was deliberately delayed, and the funds received from entrepreneurs did not go through the official accounting department. The court found unfounded the defendants' arguments that the investigator of the Prosecutor General's Office, Nikolai Volkov, who led the case, allegedly put pressure on them and forced them to make a mutual incrimination. The judge noted that Sahakyan had repeatedly sent sincere confessions to the Prosecutor General’s Office, in which he incriminated his boss Yurkov, and then retracted his testimony. Yurkov did the same. But the change in testimony was recognized by the court as an attempt to evade responsibility.
The other six defendants were more fortunate - the court sentenced Vyacheslav Baranovsky, a former Goskomstat employee who headed the Informatics branch, to 4 years probation. Other defendants - ex-FAPSI programmer Evgeny Gurov, former head of one of the departments of the Ministry of Labor Mikhail Malyshev, deputy head of the CC Valery Salnikov and Zoya Denisenkova, as well as Yurkov's former deputy Valery Dalin, were exempted from criminal punishment under the amnesty.
Bringing to justice officials of this rank already at the time of the arrest of the “statisticians” in June 1998 (they were later released on their own recognizance) had precedents - just remember the former Minister of Justice and “bathhouse attendant” Valentin Kovalev. But until now, such people have never actually gone to prison. Almost always, there was a reason for disgraced officials to make their punishment conditional. Coincidentally or not, the harsh verdict on the “statisticians” coincided with another attack by the highest authorities on the problem of corruption. Only on Friday, at the board of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Vladimir Putin demanded that Vladimir Ustinov’s subordinates act regardless of the rank of the violators: “The law is above the powers and administrative resources of any official, I emphasize, any.” And as if illustrating this idea, after the verdict was announced, the court decided to immediately take Messrs. Yurkov and Sahakyan into custody. In principle, this verdict has not yet entered into force and the lawyers of the “statisticians” immediately announced that they would appeal it. But the trend is obvious. Yaroslav Zorin, Viktor Paukov |
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