"I said: let him come"

The Aslamazyan case will end with the rehabilitation of several thousand “smugglers”

The number of criminal cases that can be reviewed after the Constitutional Court recognized Part 1 of Art. 188 of the Criminal Code (smuggling) that does not comply with the Basic Law , numbers in the thousands. According to statistics released last Friday by representatives of the Federal Customs Service (FCS), over the entire past year, customs authorities opened a total of 4,459 “smuggling” cases. During the first quarter of 2008, FCS officers investigated just over 1,200 episodes related to violations of Articles 188 and 194 (evasion of customs duties). At the same time, official representatives of the customs service, in a conversation with journalists, admitted that the lion's share of cases falls on precisely those provisions of Article 188 that were canceled by the decision of the Constitutional Court. It is still difficult to name the exact number of unfinished cases and already rendered verdicts that are subject to review, but there can be no doubt about one of the episodes.

We are talking about a case brought against the head of the Educated Media Foundation, Manana Aslamazyan, which became the reason for the complaint to the Constitutional Court. As you know, in January 2007, Ms. Aslamazyan was detained at Sheremetyevo-2 airport while crossing the customs border. The head of the non-governmental organization was accused of having more than $10,000 in undeclared currency, which, according to investigators, fell under the relevant article of the Criminal Code. Law enforcement officers, referring to the Criminal Code, considered the entire amount of currency imported by Ms. Aslamazyan to be contraband. In turn, her lawyer Viktor Parshutkin argued that only that part of the amount that exceeded the legal limit of 10 thousand dollars should be considered illegally imported currency, and insisted that the offense committed by his client was not a criminal offense, but administrative offense. The Constitutional Court, having considered the complaint filed by Mr. Parshutkin, recognized the lawyer’s arguments as convincing, and the challenged article of the Criminal Code as unconstitutional, which it announced last Tuesday.

After the verdict, the lawyer for the head of Educated Media appealed to the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to reconsider the case, but the Investigative Committee was ahead of the lawyer, stating that in the near future Ms. Aslamazyan's case would be reclassified as an administrative charge and, accordingly, her federal one would be canceled wanted The former “smuggler”, who is now in France, does not exclude the possibility of her return to Russia.

The re-examination of the case, which was widely seen as political, caused reactions abroad. And Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, speaking on Friday with correspondents of the French newspaper Le Monde, mentioned the trial of Manana Aslamazyan as an example that Russian justice is working normally. “I said: let her come (from France to Russia - Ed. ), let her go to court and fight this, but she was afraid to come,” noted the head of government. “But now the Constitutional Court has made a decision according to which, yes, she violated the law, but for this she should not be subject to criminal prosecution, and such cases should be considered within the framework of the administrative process.” Mr. Putin added that “despite all the problems... the judicial system is still developing and proving its viability.”

On the evening of the same day, Ms. Aslamazyan’s official representative, Viktor Parshutkin, reported that he had been attacked. According to the lawyer, two unknown men attacked him on the street and, after striking him several times on the head, fled, taking with them a bag and a mobile phone. At the same time, the lawyer believes that the attackers’ goal was not robbery. Moreover, he claims that one of the criminals shouted to him that he had received the task of killing the lawyer.

Mikhail MOSHKIN