Smetanova wants to go to trial

According to The New Times, the cassation appeal to the Moscow City Court against the arrest of Ekaterina Smetanova, the former head of the Expert Legal Support Center, who is accused in the Oboronexport case, may not take place. Ekaterina Smetanova expressed her desire to personally participate in the meeting.

Now she is in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in quarantine. Investigators demand that she testify against Yevgenia Vasilyeva, promising to change the measure of restraint to house arrest. Also, Smetanova was promised a meeting with her mother, but the words were not kept. Olga Pozharskaya has not seen her daughter since October 30, since Smetanova, together with her husband Maxim Zakutailo (the former general director of the District Material Warehouse of the Moscow District of the Air Force), left St. Petersburg for Moscow for interrogation at the Main Military Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.

In the case, they both first passed as witnesses. But after interrogation, they quickly turned into suspects. The investigator told them that "according to operational data" they have real estate in Spain, they can hide, so they will be taken into custody.

The couple went to the temporary detention facility in Petrovka. The next day, Judge Marina Syrova of the Khamovniki District Court authorized their arrest.

Maxim Zakutailo is being held in SIZO-6 together with former law enforcement officers. He previously worked as a civil litigation lawyer.