Translated material
"Brains are paralyzed in such a situation"
The Investigative Committee set about Vladimir Ashurkov, a member of the Constitutional Court of the Opposition and the Executive Director of the Corruption Fund
Vladimir Ashurkov in the Basmanny Court in December 2012, when the judge determined the preventive measure to the defendant in the case of Anatomy of Protest - 2 Leonid Debvozhaeva. Now it was the Basmanny Court who gave permission to search in the apartment of Ashurkov
| * The New Times No. 19 of June 4, 2012 |
Less than a year ago, in June 2012, The New Times published a large essay-a portrait of Vladimir Ashurkov*. It began like this: “He graduated from the best university in Russia, then one of the best business schools in the world. He worked in one of the most successful corporations in the country. His annual income was about $ 1 million. When he had to make a choice between business and politics, he chose the Fund for the fight against corruption of Alexei Navalny, where it works from morning to night, without receiving a penny. ” When asked if it was a pity to exchange the comfortable life of a wealthy business manager for a policy with an unobvious outcome, then he replied: “To live in a fret with a conscience is more important than money.” And last Thursday, February 7, Ashurkov accepted the military baptism - a search was carried out in his apartment, and the next day he came to his first interrogation in his life.
And what feelings?
Well ... Now they took up me.
Did you expect a search to you? Were there any signals?
No, there was nothing. I myself am surprised. That is, there was a theoretical risk, but still it turned out to be quite unexpected.
Have you noticed surveillance for yourself?
No.
And how was it?
They called the intercom - time without fifteen 11 in the morning. Search. I decided not to open the door, I began to call lawyer Vadim Kobzev.
They did not try to hack the door?
| ** In December 2012, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case on suspicion that in 2007, Alexei Navalny, through the Allekt LLC, entered into an agreement on the provision of advertising services of the Soyuz of the Right Forces, which then fought for places in the State Duma and stole 100 million rubles from the ATP. The ATP received less than 1% of the vote in parliamentary elections, and in October 2008 the party self -disclosed. |
No. The lawyer arrived after 50 minutes. Then he opened the door. They presented a decision of the Basmanny District Court on a search. It was very funny and interesting, because the decision was in the Allekt case (Allekt LLC, one of the founders of which was Alexei Navalny) and the ATP - a case against Navalny **, which dates back to 2007. And I met Navalny only in 2010! And even in this decision on the search it also says that I am related to this case, since Navalny is the founder of the Corruption Fund, and I am in this fund the Executive Director. And here it should be noted that my position as an executive director is ... it is like that, virtual: since I do not receive salaries, I have neither a contract with the fund, nor a line in the staffing table. But all this did not stop them.
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Honestly, yes, scary. Scary from uncertainty - you do not know how it will end. You will spend the night at home today or you will be there, somewhere in a pre-trial detention center ...
"
Were you somehow connected with the ATP? Financially, maybe they helped?
No, no way, never - I only voted.
Then - why?!
Well, they just did not bother with what kind of search to be a search. Probably, I had some kind of surveillance or observation for a long time ... Some threshold was crossed, and they decided to take up me more seriously. Well, in what case they came to me, I think it doesn’t matter. It happened by chance. They did not particularly take care that it looked believable.
Share a person who is calling the door and report: a search?
Well, immediately the brains are a little paralyzed in this situation.
Paralyzed?
Undoubtedly.
Scary?
Honestly, yes, scary. Scary from uncertainty - you do not know how it will end. Today you will spend the night at home or you will be there, somewhere in a pre-trial detention center ... Like all people, investigators, so cute, correct, polite, quietly write down in their pieces of paper, carefully open everything. And then you find yourself without any of your personal things, without a computer, without something that you are used to ... A stranger feels you through your body. Digging in your personal, even intimate things ... and you feel completely undressed. And then you understand that you are completely in their power. And when you see that on the basis of some incomprehensible business that you can’t have anything to do with, in your personal space they make a search-you understand in what space you are in.
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| The door of the apartment V. Ashurkov | The certificate of the investigator of the UK, who came with the search, which he demonstrates in the intercom camera: Ashurkov placed this photo on Twitter while he was waiting for the arrival of a lawyer and did not open the door |
How many hours did the search take?
About five or six.
And how many “polite, correct people” were there?
The main investigator, two people who were engaged in the inspection of premises, a technical specialist, two witnesses are neighbors from the lower floor.
And how did the neighbors react to the fact that you have a search?
Sympathetically.
Have you turned everything upside down?
More or less yes.
Did the books shut up?
No, they didn’t shake it out. In any case, they didn’t throw it on the floor - not the way I read about searches in Stalin's times. But all the cabinets in all four rooms of my apartment, all the clothes, linen - they all fucked up.
Did you understand what they were looking for?
Well, who knows. They finally took all the computers, all the phones, including the one that was in the pocket of the jacket, iPad, then some vitamins, medicines seemed suspicious to them that I bought in America. And more tea - he was in a box, in bags, they also took it.
Tea? Why?
I don’t know, maybe they think that these are not tea, but drugs.
The lawyer probably asked the question on what basis do you take vitamins and tea?
We did not receive any answers.
Were your loved ones at home?
There was a housekeeper.
I think many of our readers are interested in how to prepare for a search?
I am probably not the best person to give advice. I tried, of course, so that there was nothing particularly reprehensible on the hard drive, and I did not hold anything in the apartment. But it seems to me that it is very difficult to prepare for this. I was not preparing, at least.
They took a non -disclosure subscription from you?
And how do you like the first interrogation in your life?
Boring and dull occupation. At first, I made a statement that in 2007 I worked in the alpha groups, I had nothing to do with the ATP and LLC LLC, I met Navalny only in 2010, therefore there was no reason to conduct a search and there was no interrogation. The investigator asked a few questions, replied that the 51st article gives me the right not to testify against myself.
Have you returned some things?
No. By the way, I saw my vitamins and computers packed - they stand in the same office where they interrogated me.
After all this, you did not have a thought that it was not worth getting into politics?
To regret the past is a rather ungrateful lesson. We must think what to do based on the situation of today. While I intend to continue what has begun. Although under pressure is not easy.
Photo: Evgeny Feldman, from Twitter Vladimir Ashurkov