Intense suffering

The "Chemists' Case" is closed, but it may be replaced by "Matters of the Heart"

The so-called “chemists’ case” - the scandalous initiative of the Drug Control Department to prosecute, after veterinarians and surgeons, representatives of the chemical industry and business - died safely yesterday. The Perovsky District Court of Moscow, by its decision, stopped the prosecution of the leaders of the Moscow company Sofex, Yana Yakovleva and Alexei Protsky, thanks to whom the “chemists’ case” became famous. Representatives of the State Drug Control Service accused them, like a number of other businessmen involved in the production and trade of industrial chemicals, of illegal trade in a potent substance - “ethyl ether”, which they allegedly supplied to drug traffickers.

After this outcome of the “case of Protsky and Yakovleva,” there is now reason to expect the termination of criminal cases and the rehabilitation of hundreds of other representatives of the chemical business who were accused and already convicted on similar grounds. It is not known exactly how many people were affected by the “chemists’ case,” but, according to statistics, in 2006 alone, about 5 thousand criminal cases were initiated under Art. 234.

The reason for the termination of the case was the decree of the Russian government that came into force in January, which officially approved lists of potent substances, the sale of which falls under Article 234 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal trafficking of potent or toxic substances for the purpose of sales). “Ethyl ether” does not appear on these lists.

Since newly adopted legislative and regulatory acts mitigating the fate of the accused, defendants and convicted persons have retroactive effect, the court, guided by this principle, ruled that there was no crime at all in the illegal sale of ethyl ether.

In addition, the court decided that the article of the Criminal Code “illegal entrepreneurship” was unnecessarily imputed to the leaders of Sofex, since, according to the law, the same criminal act can be classified under only one article. Another charge against him - the legalization of funds acquired as a result of committing a crime - was excluded, since this charge logically followed from the main charge against chemists, Article 234 of the Criminal Code.

The leaders of Sofex themselves and their defense initially argued that their case was brought illegally, since at the time of their accusation there were no legitimate lists of those same “potent substances” (SV) in Russia, and the police considered “ethyl ether” as such at your own discretion. However, even with this outcome of the case, those acquitted were completely satisfied. According to Evgeny Chernousov, who represented the interests of Messrs. Yakovleva and Protsky, they are simply tired (the Sofex leaders spent six months in a pre-trial detention center) and want to work quietly again. Moreover, during the trial, according to Mr. Chernousov, everything that representatives of the Federal Drug Control Service told about this case was refuted. The leaders of Sofex, as it turned out during the trial, had nothing to do with either the “drug dealer Shulikov” or the production of drugs in general, and acted openly and legally.

However, as noted by lawyer Chernousov and many human rights activists, the end of the “chemists’ case” gave rise to a number of new problems. Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation on approval of lists of military equipment “for needs” Art. 234 of the Criminal Code, thanks to which the case was closed, created a reason for a new legal conflict. These lists included a number of substances that are part of the most common drugs, such as Corvalol, Valocordin, Pentalgin, etc., with a special footnote that they fall under the scope of the Criminal Code in “all dosage forms, no matter what their brand names.” were not designated,” and their “all mixtures and solutions, regardless of their concentration.” As a result, after the publication of this decree, pharmacies in many regions decided to abandon the free sale of these drugs, which immediately caused a stir among buyers, primarily among pensioners. The heads of the Federal Drug Control Service and the Ministry of Health and Social Development had to personally reassure the elderly and pharmacists, who made special statements that the rules for the sale of “suspicious” drugs through pharmacies would not be affected by the new rules for the circulation of pharmaceuticals. However, as Mr. Chernousov notes, this will not help solve the problem. After all, the promises of officials cannot be attached to criminal cases.

But law enforcement agencies now have all the legal grounds to regard as a crime the transfer of ill-fated medicines from one citizen to another, be they work colleagues, friends, neighbors or just relatives. That is, Mr. Chernousov noted, now a very unpleasant situation has arisen - if someone asks you for Corvalol or Pentalgin under the pretext that he has a heart or headache, it cannot be ruled out that if the drug police find out about this, the transfer Even one such tablet from hand to hand can be regarded as a crime under Article 234 of the Criminal Code. After all, the rules for the legal circulation of ill-fated drugs are not specified in any Russian law; accordingly, there are prerequisites for investigators to “freely interpret” a particular situation with drugs (that is, medicines). And the fact that the Federal Drug Control Service can interpret any legal conflict quite freely was shown by the drug police’s persecution of the same veterinarians who were accused of drug trafficking because they used painkillers during operations.

The disclosure of the high-profile “chemists’ case” was announced in the fall of 2006 by employees of the Federal Drug Control Service in Moscow. From their official report it followed that the operatives managed to prevent the production of prohibited substances on an industrial scale. They “uncovered” 36 episodes of large-scale sales of ethyl ether, carrying out business activities without a license, and laundering 15 million rubles. and forgery of documents. According to the investigation, the leaders of Sofex, using shell companies, sold ethyl ether to drug dealers, and they used this substance to produce synthetic drugs. The heads of the Sofex enterprise, Yakovleva and Protsky, drug police claimed, traded ethyl ether for seven years (from 1999 to 2005), sold it in tens of tons and earned millions for it. “8 tons of the mentioned substance, prepared for sale, were seized from the Sofax premises. From this amount of ethyl ether, it was possible to make about a ton of various synthetic drugs, which is approximately 10 million doses.”

Employees of the Federal Drug Control Service reported that they were able to get on the trail of Sofex during the investigation of the case of citizen Shulikov, who was detained in 2004 “for the production and sale of methadone, a derivative of which is ethyl ether.” As the investigation established, Shulikov brewed drugs in the basement of his house, and then “sold the finished product among schoolchildren, students and in places of mass leisure for young people.” Shulikov allegedly purchased ethyl ether from Sofax. Protsky and Yakovlev were arrested and released only after the trial began.

After that, they themselves made a fuss, holding a series of press conferences, at which they said that they did not know Shulikov, did not make drugs, but sold the ill-fated ethyl ether - a chemical, a common solvent in industry - to factories, research institutes and even military units exclusively for industrial purposes, and they had all the necessary permits. They also reported that a case was opened against them after they refused to “cooperate” with police officers who offered them to share the profits.

As lawyer Evgeny Chernousov told Vremya Novostey at the time, ethyl ether could not be considered a sterile substance. There have been no lists of such substances at all since 2004. Previously, these lists, like drug lists, were approved by the Standing Committee for Narcotics Control (PCNC), which at one time existed under the Ministry of Health. But then this committee became a public organization, its decisions legally lost any force. After that, the lists of drugs were compiled by the government of the Russian Federation, and then they simply forgot about SV. The drug police took advantage of this, using the already invalid PKKN lists. Moreover, even so, Sofax was not subject to these regulations - it was engaged in industrial chemicals, but it was accused of not having a license for pharmaceutical activities, although the company was not engaged in it. But the police were not confused by these arguments; they continued to say that the leaders of Sofex were accomplices of drug dealers.

A year ago, the “chemists’ case” was brought to court. But the prosecution began to lose from the very beginning. Thus, as the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported , experts from the Federal Drug Control Service admitted that they were unable to carry out a full examination of the substances seized at Sofex, citing the lack of “necessary equipment.” Yesterday, by the way, the Perovsky court ruled that such an examination cannot be considered legal. The defense was also able to prove in court that the leaders of Sofex had absolutely nothing to do with Shulikov’s criminal case or with any other drug dealers. But the matter was put to rest by the resolution on the lists of SVs, adopted on the initiative of the Federal Drug Control Service, which earlier, justifying the need to “improve” the law, recognized that Art. 234 actually cannot be used.

In connection with a new legal conflict around Art. 234 of the Criminal Code, by the way, veterinarians have already expressed concern. As it turned out, there is still no department in the Ministry of Agriculture that would be involved in licensing veterinarians - and this, among other things, has already been a reason for their persecution in the past.

Ekaterina BUTORINA, Victor PAUKOV