Translated material
Criminal tomography
Siemens has a criminal case in the Urals
Russian security forces unexpectedly found themselves involved in a pan-European campaign to combat corruption at Siemens . Auditors discovered almost 1 billion euros in the corporation's accounts, which was planned for kickbacks for foreign contracts. Investigations are already underway in Germany, Italy, the USA and Switzerland. There is also a case against Siemens in Russia - two people were arrested in Yekaterinburg and are suspected of causing damage to the budget amounting to tens of millions of rubles.The first to be arrested was the deputy head of the health department of the Yekaterinburg mayor's office, Alexander Shastin , the second - last Friday - the head of the Siemens representative office in the Sverdlovsk region, Lev Dubnov. The acting head of the Yekaterinburg department of the Sverdlovsk investigative department of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Lagunov, notes that so far no charges have been brought against Mr. Dubnov - the investigation has ten days to do this, until November 29. But none of the security forces is hiding that a company representative was arrested in the same case as a city government official.
The investigators became interested in the two Yekaterinburg residents after checking the results of a tender for the purchase of tomographs for city hospitals three years ago. According to the documents, tomographs were imported into the country in disassembled form - as spare parts for medical equipment and, therefore, were subject to lower fees than full-fledged equipment. In Russia, spare parts were assembled into devices and offered to health departments. Since the price of the devices was lower than similar ones imported to Russia in compliance with all the rules, Siemens tomographs won all competitions. The investigation believes that tomographs, formally consisting of spare parts, could be even cheaper. After studying the documents, the security officials suggested that Lev Dubnov supplied this very equipment to Yekaterinburg, and Alexander Shastin, when holding tenders, gave preference to the German company. The amount of damage caused fluctuates, according to investigators, in the range of 20-30 million rubles.
The arrest of the deputy head of the health department, Alexander Shastin, unknown to the general public, caused a lively reaction from the medical community. The chief doctors of city hospitals and the management team appealed to the regional governor Eduard Rossel, prosecutors at various levels, and the leadership of the regional court with a request to review the preventive measure for Alexander Shastin.
“Investigators only say that, while remaining at large, Alexander Sergeevich can hide or threaten witnesses, or use his official position to put pressure on his subordinates. But this statement does not stand up to criticism. For several months, at the appointed time, exactly hourly, he appeared to the investigator. He also has no one to put pressure on. Shastin has only five subordinates, and all of them work in the technical department of the department,” explains the reasons for the appeal, the representative of the Yekaterinburg City Health Inna Abelinskene.
Moreover, doctors said that this case has political overtones. The situation was ruined by the investigators themselves, who turned even ordinary doctors against themselves. On November 15, during interrogation, Alexander Shastin’s blood pressure rose, and an ambulance was called to the isolation ward where he was being held. The dispatcher directed the car from the isolation ward to city hospital No. 6, but in the middle of the road the ambulance was stopped, and the investigators rudely demanded that the medical staff give them the patient in order to take him to another hospital. The verbal skirmish lasted 20 minutes; the medical workers emerged victorious, but this did not stop the investigators. Arriving at hospital No. 6, the group leader tried to gather all the hospital staff in the emergency room. The memo addressed to the head of the ambulance stated that the communication took place “in a rude, unacceptable form.”
The reaction of medical workers turned out to be so serious that the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Yuri Zolotov, ordered the prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk region, Yuri Ponomarev, to look into the situation and assess the legality of the arrest of Alexander Shastin. Governor Eduard Rossel also expressed skepticism about the guilt of the arrested Urals residents: Siemens is a very serious company. They have a joint venture with the Ural Optical-Mechanical Plant. I was at their central office in Germany. I couldn’t even imagine that it was possible to produce such high-class medical equipment. But if this fact is confirmed, it means that among the Germans there are people who are not averse to making money at the expense of us Russians.”
The Yekaterinburg mayor's office blames the security forces for what is happening. The chief of staff of the mayor's office, Sergei Tushin, emphasizes that the municipal government will do everything to restore Alexander Shastin and the health department's good name: “We do not defend the honor of the uniform. The mayor of the city, Arkady Chernetsky, always advocates the fight against unscrupulous employees and corrupt officials. We have already proven that we are ready to work together with law enforcement agencies to expose such facts, but today is not the case; there is no talk of corruption. And we will help Alexander Sergeevich as a colleague and as a comrade.”
He believes that with the passage of time, Shastin’s innocence will be proven, and provides evidence of his point of view: the frequent seizures of documents from the mayor’s office by security forces had no consequences, the announced case on the Snezhinka sports complex ended in nothing, the seizure of 200 land files was declared illegal by the court. And last Friday, the Verkh-Isetsky Court of Yekaterinburg declared illegal the attempts of the prosecutor’s office to protest infrastructure contributions to budget funds, confirming the rightness of the mayor’s office.
“On the eve of the elections, the ‘doctors’ case’ arises, and the whole sphere is opposed to the authorities,” continues the press secretary of the city mayor, Konstantin Pudov. “In such a situation, questions arise about the adequacy of the activities of law enforcement agencies. Do they evaluate themselves as representatives of the state or not? Perhaps the interests of Russia, which needs a calm conduct of the election campaign, are not very interested in this state in the state that law enforcement agencies are turning into. I am convinced that we will prove our case in court.”
Another result of the case was the stoppage of the assembly of a new tomograph for the Yekaterinburg cardiocenter. It was supposed to be transferred to the Sverdlovsk region as part of the national project “Healthcare”. The security forces have not yet commented on all this - they only unofficially report that everything voiced is emotions, and for 20-30 million rubles. (this is exactly the amount of damage the investigation calculated) dozens of new tomographs could be bought.