Prosecutor for "werewolves"

The prosecution demanded the maximum punishment for corrupt officials from the secret services

Yesterday, the state prosecutor demanded that Vladimir Ganeev (pictured) , a general of the Ministry of Emergency Situations who led the criminal group of “werewolves in uniform,” be sentenced to 25 years in a maximum security colony. This demand was voiced by the prosecutor yesterday at the end of his speech in the debate at the visiting session of the Moscow District Military Court in the Lefortovo detention center. In it, the prosecutor asked to deprive the “werewolves” of all military ranks and awards. In addition to the former head of the security department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Ganeev, six senior officers of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department appear in the case - Yuri Samolkin, Evgeniy Taratorin, Nikolai Demin, Igor Ostrovsky, Vadim Vladimirov and Alexander Breshchanov. For them, the prosecutor also asked for almost the maximum punishment - from 19 to 25 years in prison.

The heroes of the case of “werewolves in uniform,” as the then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Boris Gryzlov once dubbed it, are accused of organizing a criminal community, exceeding official authority with the use of violence and extortion.

According to the investigation, starting in 1997, Ganeev and the Murovites extorted large sums of money from the heads of various commercial enterprises for several years, planting drugs and weapons on them, threatening them with criminal liability and the use of physical violence. During the searches, about $3 million was seized from safe deposit boxes alone, rented in the name of the accused. In addition, the case materials refer to an expensive mansion in Spain purchased by Ganeev.

The General of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and six employees of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department were detained on June 23, 2003, and this event marked the beginning of the authorities’ first noisy campaign against corruption. The prosecutor's office, which at first cheerfully reported to television cameras about the successful operation against "werewolves", unexpectedly insisted on holding the hearings behind closed doors, and asked its participants not to communicate with journalists. Information from behind the walls of Lefortovo began to leak out only when the process entered its final stage, and whether by chance or not, this coincided with a new wave of the fight against corrupt officials. Discussing these coincidences and the prospects of the case, the lawyers again, as in 2003, started talking about campaigning, which, in their opinion, deprived their clients of a chance for a fair trial. Only the other day, by the way, it turned out that over the year and a half that the trial has been going on, the court has questioned more than a hundred witnesses.

The prosecutors presented their arguments to the court for three days. Their speeches in total were presented on 250 typewritten sheets. According to some lawyers, in their speeches the prosecutors repeated the indictment almost verbatim, and also presented logical arguments that, in their opinion, proved the guilt of the defendants. As a punishment for the “werewolves”, the prosecutor demanded imprisonment for a term of 19 to 25 years in a maximum security colony. The maximum sentence was requested for EMERCOM General Vladimir Ganeev and MUR employee Yuri Samolkin, who, according to the investigation, are key figures in this criminal community. The prosecutor asked for a minimum sentence of 19 years for MUR officer Alexander Breshchanov, who spent almost all the hearings lying down due to a serious spinal injury.

After listening to the prosecutor’s speech, Vladimir Ganeev, according to eyewitnesses, said that “this is complete chaos.” Defenders of the accused share the same opinion, although they expressed it more restrainedly, speaking about “the excessively cruel punishment requested by the prosecutor.” Recognizing the correctness of the logical constructions in the speech of the state prosecutor, they nevertheless pointed out that it was necessary to prove the guilt of the defendants with facts, and not with inferences.

The defendants' lawyers will begin speaking on June 15, but it is already known that they will insist on a full acquittal for their clients. “We will talk about Ganeev’s innocence and complete acquittal, since neither he himself admits any guilt, nor is his guilt visible in the case materials,” said defense lawyer Vladimir Levin. Other defendants in the case also pleaded not guilty.

Eduard LOMOVTSEV