| The “Pumane Case” is becoming increasingly surrounded by new mysteries and scandals The mysterious story of the discovery of a car with explosives in Spiridonyevsky Lane in Moscow on September 18 is acquiring more and more scandalous details. The man who transported the bomb and died after interrogations has not yet been identified (initially it was believed that he was former military submariner Alexander Pumane, but his relatives deny this fact), but investigators already have their first suspect in the death of the detainee. Last weekend, news agencies reported that law enforcement agencies, in connection with the investigation of the “Pumane case,” began searching for the former head of the Moscow Organized Crime Control Department, Major Vyacheslav Dushenko. Allegedly, he personally interrogated the suspect and has been hiding from representatives of the prosecutor’s office for the second week. However, according to Dushenko’s colleagues, as recently as Wednesday he was quietly working at his workplace. But Moscow lawyers who have encountered the major claim that Dushenko has previously used unauthorized means against detainees.
Immediately after the driver of the Zhiguli was brought to the 83rd police station on September 18 with documents addressed to Alexander Pumane, at least 150 intelligence officers came to talk with him. Including the head of the anti-terrorism department of the operational-investigative unit (ORCh) No. 5 of the Organized Crime Control Department of Moscow, Vyacheslav Dushenko. After interrogations that lasted several hours, the suspect died. In connection with his death, the cause of which, according to forensic experts, was beatings, the Moscow prosecutor's office opened a criminal case. Last Thursday, the head of the capital's Main Internal Affairs Directorate, Vladimir Pronin, at a special board, reprimanded his subordinates for the story with Pumane, removed the head of the Organized Crime Control Department, Vyacheslav Baranov, and the head of ORCh No. 5, Anton Gusev, from their posts, and fired Vyacheslav Dushenko. And already on Saturday, media reports appeared that law enforcement agencies began searching for the major, since he had not been to the prosecutor’s office since September 19, and had not appeared at work or at home. Allegedly, it was Dushenko who took the detainee from the office of the interrogator of the 83rd police station to the basement, after which he became ill.
“All these statements look quite strange,” said our interlocutor at the Organized Crime Control Department. - It is still not clear with the detainee himself - who he really was, whose corpse is being presented to relatives for identification, and whether the real Pumane died at all? And some suspects are already emerging. Dushenko did not run from anyone. Back on Wednesday, he was at his morning meeting and at his workplace. On Thursday he was fired, and after that they began to say that he was allegedly hiding.”
Before joining the Organized Crime Control Department, Vyacheslav Dushenko worked for a long time at the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. Various prosecutors' offices have repeatedly received complaints regarding the operative's activities. So, in November 2001, it was Dushenko who arrested Badrudi Yamadayev (brother of the commander of the special battalion of the Ministry of Defense “Vostok” Sulim Yamadayev and State Duma deputy Ruslan Yamadayev) and Sharip Dzhabrailov (a relative of the famous businessman Umar Dzhabrailov). They were accused of organizing an assassination attempt on the Deputy Chief Sanitary Doctor of Moscow, Alexander Melnikov. “Dushenko participated in falsifying the case against Yamadayev,” lawyer Igor Yartykh, who represented the interests of Badrudi Yamadayev, told us yesterday. — Illegal interrogation methods that went beyond what was permissible were used against my client; pressure was put on both the accused and the witnesses. The pistol that Dushenko planted on Yamadayev was excluded by the court from the case file. The court generally found Dzhabrailov not guilty of the assassination attempt.”
On Friday, when the search for Dushenko was already underway, news agencies broadcast the following statement from the head of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate, Vladimir Pronin, dedicated to the “Pumane case”: “We do not absolve ourselves of responsibility, the perpetrators have already been identified and punished. I think that all departments had violations in this situation. But the most serious mistake was made by the prosecutor of the Presnensky district of Moscow, who should have come and carried out prosecutorial supervision directly on the spot.” Moscow Prosecutor Anatoly Zuev immediately reacted to this and scolded Mr. Pronin: “The explanation of what happened as a “mistake” is puzzling. The law defines this (the death of a detainee - Ed. ) as a crime committed with a clear abuse of official authority. Moreover, Pronin’s subordinates committed excess. In violation of all requirements, they took the person with whom the investigative actions were carried out from the investigator to the basement for so-called operational work.” By Friday evening, the situation became even more confused, since the press service of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate stated that Mr. Pronin had not commented on the activities of the Presnensky prosecutor’s office at all, and at the same time annulled the words spoken by the general last week about the detention of suspects in another high-profile case - the murder of a journalist Paula Khlebnikov. Alexander SHVAREV |
|
