Wrong search

St. Petersburg Memorial defeated the investigator in court

The St. Petersburg research center “Memorial” achieved a victory over law enforcement officers in court - the search carried out in December on the premises of the research center was declared illegal. Yesterday, the Dzerzhinsky Court of the Central District of St. Petersburg upheld the complaint of Memorial leaders against the actions of investigator Mikhail Kalganov and ordered the return of all documents seized at the center.

Let us recall that an employee of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, Mikhail Kalganov, accompanied by witnesses and people in masks, appeared at the office of the Memorial Research Center on December 4. He presented a search warrant to the Memorial employees and volunteers who were there, after which the doors of the organization were closed and the employees were prohibited from using all means of communication. The office was searched for almost seven hours. All calls from Memorial's lawyers were not answered from the office, and as a result, the defenders were not allowed inside. At about seven in the evening the investigator and the people accompanying him left through the back entrance .

According to the leaders of the center, after the visit of law enforcement officers, they found a real pogrom in the office. In addition, the investigator took 12 hard drives from computers containing information about Soviet-era repressions, research materials and working documents from the center.

From the order to conduct the search, it became clear to the lawyers that the procedural actions were carried out as part of a criminal case brought against the newspaper “New Petersburg”, which, as the investigation claimed, published an article in the summer of 2007 that was regarded as extremist. The investigation claimed that it had information about the connection between New Petersburg, its editor Andreev and Memorial. Chairman of the Board of the Memorial Research Center Vladimir Schnittke immediately stated that the research center has nothing to do with “New Petersburg” and, moreover, considers this publication “openly fascist.” The leaders of the center could explain all this to investigator Kalganov himself, who, a week after the search, invited them for a conversation.

It is noteworthy that the investigative department of the Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg almost immediately recognized the actions of its employee as erroneous and promised to return the seized materials. However, the last promise was not fulfilled, and Memorial went to court. According to Memorial's lawyers, the search was accompanied by numerous procedural violations: even in the resolution, the investigator made a mistake in the name of the organization; moreover, during the process, neither the head of the organization nor the lawyer were allowed into the office. In addition, lawyer Ivan Pavlov claims, investigator Kalganov explained in detail the rights of the witnesses cited, but forgot to do this for Memorial employees and volunteers.

From Mikhail Kalganov’s explanations at the first meeting, held last Friday, it became clear that, in his opinion, the editor of New Petersburg could have hidden some documents related to the publication in Memorial. He was led to this conclusion by observing Andreev, who, according to the investigator, once entered the entrance where Memorial rents premises. In response to the lawyer’s objection that there are other offices in this entrance, and several floors above there are residential apartments, Mr. Kalganov continued to say that he has certain data. At yesterday's court hearing, the prosecutor continued the line of investigator Kalganov and stated that all of Memorial's complaints are unfounded, since in the video recording that was recorded during the search by the investigator's assistants, there is a moment when volunteers are asked to read the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. “The law directly states: rights must be explained,” lawyer Pavlov is indignant. “Considering that the volunteers and employees of Memorial do not have a special legal education, and that one of them is a foreigner, the proposal to read the code looked like a mockery.”

As a result, federal judge Andrei Shibakov considered Memorial’s arguments more weighty, upheld the complaint about the investigator’s procedural actions and issued a ruling: return all seized documents. “The court’s decision, of course, can be challenged by the prosecutor’s office, they have ten days to do this,” Mr. Pavlov is in no hurry to rejoice. - However, the decision - to challenge or not - is not made in St. Petersburg, our case is now in Moscow, in the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation. So the decision remains with Moscow.”

Natalya SHKURENOK, St. Petersburg