The first court of Navalny

On Wednesday, April 24, in Kirov, the process of the Kirovles case will resume. Why did the first meeting last only 45 minutes, what the witnesses of the prosecution think about the process and how in Kirov they relate to Alexei Navalny, a person involved in five criminal cases and the most famous oppositionist of Russia, - the New Times found out on the spot

The bailiff of the Leninsky District Court of the city of Kirov and Alexey Navalny. After the end of the hearing, Judge Sergey Blinov asked Navalny to climb the office. April 17, 2013

The line in the Leninsky District Court of Kirov was held on the eve of the first meeting from night. More than a hundred journalists of the leading Western and Russian media recorded in line from 12 a.m. The wits christened this with a "Navalny list." At six in the morning, at the house of 20 on Spasskaya Street - the court buildings - they had a roll call. The adviser to the political department of the American embassy Kevin Covert, who stood with journalists, answered his number: “USA”. What the adviser to the Swedish embassy answered, no one heard, but he was then in the meeting room. At night, on the asphalt, someone stagnated the inscription: "For Navalny!" The tractor drove up immediately and the inscription disappeared. On the next street she was applied again - and she lasted until the evening of the next day. But the law enforcement officers did not particularly shine. In Kirov, they are generally unusually “delicate”. Several police officers were watching the order, a car zak was parked on the other side of the street, an hour before the start of the trial, two UAZs with riot police arrived. Just in case.

Start

At the entrance to the meeting room, immediately after the framework of the metal detector and bailiffs, who said: “Be kind, please open the bag,” the chairman of the court himself Konstantin Zaitsev, a bald man with a military bearing, in a dark jacket and a bright tie. After a few minutes, he will apologize to the photographers, who, in order to take a convenient position for filming, were asked to "put them into a cage for the defendants, otherwise we will not be able to make a beautiful picture." “A free press in a cage is a reputation risk for us,” Zaitsev will explain in a soft voice.

The first in the courtroom, where 70 lucky ones sat down - writing and shooting journalists were two prosecutors in blue uniforms. Nobody paid attention to them. Everyone was waiting for Alexei Navalny - journalists aimed their iPads, iPhones, photo lenses on politics: he entered - smiling, in a white shirt without a jacket, with a bandaged hand. Five minutes before him, Julia’s wife, who, together with Boris Nemtsov and deputy Dmitry Gudkov, sat on a bench behind the tables and their defenders.

The clock is exactly nine in the morning.

On the side of protection

On the night before the trial, the police called the tractor to erase the stencil inscription “For Navalny!”, Which someone made on the asphalt

The latter was the judge Sergey Blinov - in the Black Judicial Mantle. He was worried. I never looked at the public, buried in the paper. He spoke quietly, so quietly that the politician Boris Nemtsov could not stand it: "Please speak louder."

But Blinov did not speak louder, and the microphones standing on the tables of the participants in the process did not work. The day before, the whole brigade set these microphones - no effect: for the hearing, the Leninist court is not too adapted. However, the judge did not try to hear him. The fact that he said could have guessed only by answering his questions. For several minutes, procedural issues were resolved. Then the defense stated as many as three petitions: to postpone the process so that the defendants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the case file (for studying 29 volumes they were given only 36 days), transfer the process to Moscow (if only because the defendants were taken from the unsuccessful subscription, from Navalny - as many as two, and his accomplice Peter Officer in Moscow and five children), to transfer the process for a month for a month (so that the local, Kirov lawyer, who hired Navalny, had the opportunity to get acquainted with the case). The prosecutors objected to the deposit of the sentence for a month.

And the representative of the victim, the head of the Department of State Property of the Kirov Region Pavel Smertin, was not opposed: “At the discretion of the court,” he answered the judge’s question. Smertin is generally full of riddles: in the criminal case there is a protocol of his interrogation, where he says that he only learned about the damage caused by the state during interrogation, that is, he actually admits that the activities of Navalny and Officer Kirovles did not cause any material damage.

Judge Blinov granted the defense petition. He suffered court hearings. True, not for a month, but for a week.

The court hearing, which came from the capital about 200 journalists and several dozen activists from Voronezh, St. Petersburg, Samara, Tver, lasted 45 minutes.

Ordinary crime

In the lobby, the senior assistant to the head of the Investigative Department of the SK in the Kirov region, Colonel Andrei Vasilkov, came to journalists. He specially came to court to explain the position of the investigation to the press. And this is another innovation of the court in Kirov: everyone is accustomed to the fact that in the courts investigators act as witnesses, and not as newsmakers.

“The Investigative Committee considers this case as a common crime committed in the field of economics against state property,” the gray -haired colonel assured journalists. He outlined the plot of the indictment, although it was not yet voiced at the trial*.

The main idea that the representative of the UK wanted to convey to the journalists: the matter is not political. The initiative of its excitement does not come from the authorities, but from the directors of the forestry, to whom the accused - the former adviser on a public basis of the Governor of the Kirov Region Alexei Navalny and the former head of the Vyatka forest company Peter Officers - imposed unprofitable conditions for the sale of forest.

Political business

Alexei Navalny with his wife Julia at the station in Kirov. April 17, 2013

Journalists who had already managed to read the indictment in the Kirovles case - Alexei Navalny hung it on the Internet - attacked Colonel Vasilkov questions. The New Times, in particular, asked questions to which there are no answers in the indictment. Namely: if the state was damaged as a result of the fact that the Vyatka forest company purchased wood from Kirovles enterprises at a price below the market, then why there is no examination that indicates what price at that time was low, high, average? Why, if you believe the charge, practically not any indication of the directors of the leshoze said at what price they used to sell the forest and how Navalny and officers robbed them? How did it happen that in April 2012 the Kirovles case was closed: the investigation considered that the damage from the VLK amounted to 589 thousand rubles without signs of theft, and in July 2012 the case was renewed, and without conducting an economic examination, the damage increased significantly and amounted to as many as 16 million rubles?

Colonel Vasilkov answered this: “The examination was not carried out, or not - the prerogative of the investigation. There were other investigative actions that, in our opinion, meet the requirements of the charges. ” When asked whether the investigation found the money stolen by the accused, Colonel Vasilkov said something amazing: “The VLK has a debt of about 3 million rubles to Kirovles. The rest of the money was paid, we do not deny it. ” This fact contradicts the essence of the accusation: if so, then where is the 160th article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation-embezzlement on an especially large scale? The case of a debt of 3 million rubles applies to civil law relations and should be considered in arbitration. Is the case of "embezzlement" not falsified then? These questions did not knock down the colonel, he firmly stood his ground: “The situation went from the directors of the forestry, and not from a particular surname-Navalny, for example.”

A thief on the cabinet

The owner of a specific surname, Alexei Navalny, leaving the court building, stopped at the Kirov Drama Theater, where a rally went on to his defense from 8 in the morning, and invited everyone to move to Orlovskaya Street, to the house 49 to his headquarters. Local civilian activists have already gathered there, who called everyone who wanted to walk around the city and to catch the campaign leaflets "for Navalny, for Russia without crooks and thieves."

Nobody really wanted to walk around the city with leaflets. In everything that happened after the court session, some kind of fatigue, a feeling of delayed expectation and optionality was felt.

“Do you know who Navalny is? - The most common question that these days are asked by the residents of Kirov. They answer, as a rule, almost the same: "Who is it?" Or: "I heard something, but I don't know for sure." One of the interlocutors replied: "It seems that Navalny was in the team of the governor, and if so, then a thief, like everything in the government of the region."

There is no doubt that the Kirovites in a few days of the “invasion” had to answer the city to two more typical questions: “Why are you so dirty on the roads?” Answer: "Roads are not repaired, only launch, everything is stolen." And the second: "Will they put Navalny?" To this question, the driver Sergey, who himself had been in the Kirov zone for several years, answered in the affirmative, without even asking what kind of case the Navalny was going on: “They will put it, of course, once the case came to court.”

Why do activists from Moscow and other cities come to Kirov to the trial, local journalists do not understand. “One young colleague was surprised to ask me:“ Why are they going here? - The correspondent of the Kirov media told The New Times. “I explained to her that this is such a movement, entertainment.” Everyone goes crazy in their own way. Here's how we, for example, go to the mountains, fry kebabs. ”

Witnesses of the prosecution

Among the witnesses, the prosecutions that should be summoned to the court are the director of 46 forestry. I tried to trade the VLK with them. Almost all of them in the investigation stated-or this was interpreted by the investigator-that they were unprofitable to trade with this “laying” company imposed by the regional government. Why it used to be beneficial - because they traded from the pocket to the pocket, that is, for cash (which is happening, according to knowledgeable people, in the vast majority of the country's forestry lost in the backyards), or the old counterparties offered the best prices - this cannot be understood from the prosecution. But at the investigation, the director of the forestry explained that when the VLK was announced, they began to receive less money from the sale of their forests, the general director of the VLK Pyotr Officers did not offer them promised new agreements, and they could trade with old counterparties even without intermediaries. It was they who, most likely, will be repeated on the process: they were already informed in the prosecutor's office that they would be called to court.

Olga Ivanovna Grebneva, the former director of the Slobodsky forestry, is one of these future witnesses of the prosecution. We are talking to her at home in the city of Slobodskaya, an hour riding from Kirov. Boxes with seedlings are placed everywhere - how the snow will do, Grebneva will work in the garden: she quit from the forestry, there is now a new LLC, which is disposed of everyone.

“I have never seen Navalny,” says Grebneva. - Only on TV. And I have never worked with VLK. ”

Olga Ivanovna recalls that when the director of the forestry at a meeting with the head of Kirovles Vyacheslav Opalev advised whether they work with the visiting Muscovites, Opalev said to them: “If we do not work, then we will not be at all.” According to Grebneva, he had in mind that Kirovles, which was then in debt, as in silk, owing at 300 million salaries, would go bankrupt. Which, in fact, in the end happened, but after Navalny left Kirov. Opileva Grebneva regrets and says that he was persecuted in the regional government. And to the question, how did it happen that the former chief Kirov Lesovik signed a pre -trial agreement on cooperation with the investigation and admitted that, together with the officer and Navalny, he was outlined for 16 million rubles, for which he received 4 years conditionally **, Grebneva answers: “He was not in conspiracy with the VLK, this is not true. When he was convicted, I called him and asked how he was, and he replied: “That's it. Get out. " Now he does not want to meet anyone. He is now so depressed, broken. ”

For Olga Grebneva, as well as for most directors of forestry, Opalev - his own, and Navalny and officers - strangers, the Varangians who came from Moscow, wanted to earn, twisted for several months in the region (the relations of the Vyatka forest company with Kirovles lasted only 4 months), they did not work out, and they left for Kirovles, although, as it thinks. Grebnev could live and live.

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"Do you know who is Navalny?" - The most common question that these days are asked by the residents of Kirov. Answer: "And who is this?"

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“I really don’t know if Navalny stood there next to the officer,” says the former head of the forestry. - Maybe Navalny was just picked up with him. And then, then, the matter is political. ”

Another former director of the forestry, in the north of the region, agreed to talk with The New Times only on anonymity. He looks around and offers to pass at another table: “It seems to me that a person at the next table eavesdropping on us.” He does not complain either Navalny or Officer and says that the regional government forced Opilyu to sign contracts with the VLK, but he did not want to and was not in any collusion with Muscovites. “To testify on Navalny,” this former director of the leshoz adds in a half -whisper, “Opalev was forced after the events on Bolotnaya Square on May 6, when they decided to put Navalny. But Opalev could not refuse - after all, the investigation has a dossier for each leader. ” Will he repeat these words in court? Rhetorical question.

The one whom Bastrykin punished

Judge Sergei Blinov finds out the passport data of the defendants Peter Officer and Alexei Navalny

Alexander Panov headed the Investigative Department of the IC in the Kirov region for more than five years. Since December, he, Major General of Justice, who has 23 years of work by the investigator, switched to another job-the head of the Association “Council of Municipal Education of the Kirov Region”. Instead of the dark blue form of the head of the investigative department, Panov now wears a blue-white striped shirt and a striped tie.

It was he who approved the resolution of the senior investigator of the department for the investigation of particularly important cases of the UK UK in the Kirov region of Vetoshkin, who on April 10, 2012 terminated the criminal case against Navalny for the absence of a crime in his actions. True, after two weeks, the Main Directorate of Procedural Control of the IC of the Russian Federation canceled this decision and the proceedings were resumed.

And on July 5, at an expanded meeting of the College of the RF IC in St. Petersburg, the head of the UK Alexander Bastrykin fell criticized by Alexander Panov.

The head of the Investigative Committee then raged: “You had a criminal case against this person and quietly you stopped him. If there is reason to terminate the case, report. Weak, you are afraid, crushing - report ... I took off some from work, you know, and here this is the last bell in the Kirov region. "

Alexander Panov is not offended by Bastrykin, he says that his dismissal with the “Navalny affair” is in no way connected. He was offered a position in another region, but he did not want to leave the Kirov region. It is hard to believe in this version: his modest office and the current position are a clear decrease. “Then we closed the criminal case not because Navalny did not commit a crime, but because there was no sufficient evidence to send the case to court. Or maybe we did not work, were short-sighted, ”Panov explains, and at the end of the interview, he suggests after some time to meet and talk again. I ask: after the sentence?

The former head of the Investigative Department of the Kirov region grins into his mustache and to the question of what can be the court decision in the case of Navalny, answers as follows: "We have punitive justice."

Major General of Justice Alexander Panov knows what he says.

"Successfully went"

On April 18, the representative of the IC Vladimir Markin said that a new criminal case was opened against Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg. This time, the Navalny brothers are suspected of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4. Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) ***.

“I woke up on the train. I learned that another criminal case was opened. This means we went well, ”wrote Alexei Navalny on his Twitter.

The defendant in five criminal cases, of which he is the accused.

Photos: Mitya Aleshkovsky/Radio Liberty , Sergey Brovko, Gennady Gulyaev/Kommersant