Translated material
Dismissed legally
The Moscow City Court refused to reinstate the arrested Dmitry Dovgiy in his previous position
The Moscow City Court yesterday refused to reinstate Dmitry Dovgiy, the former head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Russian Prosecutor's Office (GSU SKP), who was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of receiving a bribe in the amount of 750 thousand euros and exceeding official powers.As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported , the scandalous dismissal of Chief Dovgiy occurred in April on the orders of the chairman of the UPC, Alexander Bastrykin. The reason, as officially stated, was an internal audit, as a result of which it was decided that the activities of the country's chief investigator tarnished the reputation of the UPC. In response to this, the dismissed man accused his leadership of corruption, and then publicly announced that some of the most high-profile criminal cases of recent times - General of the State Drug Control Service Alexander Bulbov and Deputy Minister of Finance Sergei Storchak - “were falsified.” He called his dismissal illegal and filed a lawsuit for reinstatement at work.
In his application to the Moscow City Court, Mr. Dovgiy indicated that he considered the order issued by Bastrykin on his dismissal from the authorities on April 21 of this year to be “unfounded.” “The said order does not indicate for failure to perform or improper performance of any specific official duties or for committing any offenses that discredit the honor of a prosecutor’s employee, I will be subject to disciplinary action in the form of dismissal,” the lawsuit says. According to the former head of the Civil Service, the civil service law was violated in his case. “I was not required to provide written explanations on the facts that served as the basis for issuing the order. I did not disclose or use for purposes unrelated to the civil service information classified as confidential information in accordance with federal law. I ask you to reinstate me at work, to recover from the UPC the average salary for the period of forced absence from April 22, 2008 to the day of reinstatement at work. To recover in my favor from the defendant in compensation for the moral damage caused to me by illegal dismissal of 100 thousand rubles,” these are the claims filed by Mr. Dovgiy against SKP.
The first meeting was supposed to take place on Tuesday and, due to the large number of state investigative secrets it contained, would be held behind closed doors. However, neither Mr. Dovgy himself nor his representatives came to court without explaining the reasons for his failure to appear. The meeting was adjourned.
Later, the reason for the plaintiff’s failure to appear in court became known. It turned out that Mr. Dovgiy and his former colleague from work at the Main Military Prosecutor's Office Andrei Sagura were detained on Monday by employees of the UPC's own security department. During an inspection carried out in March, they suspected that Sagura had transferred 750 thousand euros from one businessman to Dovgy for resolving the issue of releasing on bail one of the defendants in the Tomskneft case - the former deputy chairman of the board of Trust Bank Oleg Kolyada.
According to investigators, Mr. Dovgy received a bribe in the amount of 750 thousand euros from Mr. Sagura in the period from November 2007 to February 2008, that is, precisely during the period when the suspect worked as the head of the State Investigative Directorate. The investigation quickly convinced the Basmanny Court that it was dangerous to leave Dovgy at large, and it decided to arrest him and Sagura. In the coming days, the investigation plans to formally charge them.
Since Mr. Dovgy is in Matrosskaya Tishina, yesterday the Moscow City Court contacted him via video conferencing. The plaintiff immediately stated that he “feels very bad, that he has high blood pressure and it is difficult for him to discuss the subject of the claim,” asking to postpone the hearing of the case “at least for two days in order to somehow come to his senses.” But since two representatives of Mr. Dovgiy were present in court, the judge decided not to postpone the consideration of the claim indefinitely. “The judge of the Moscow City Court, having considered Mr. Dovgiy’s claim behind closed doors to reinstate him at work, issued a decision to reject the claim in full,” said Anna Usacheva, head of the press service of the Moscow City Court. “The court also refused compensation of 100 thousand rubles, which he demanded for forced absenteeism.”
Mr. Dovgiy’s lawyer, Yuri Bagraev, announced his intention to appeal “this illegal and unfounded decision in the Supreme Court.”