The Basmanny Court will review the complaint of their defense

The Moscow City Court panel overturned the decision of the Basmanny District Court, which in January of this year recognized the legality of the ICR's initiation of a criminal case against oppositionist Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg on fraud and laundering of stolen money. The materials were sent for a new trial to the court of first instance. The Investigative Committee insists that the case against the brothers was justified.

Chairman of the Opposition Coordination Council Alexei Navalny (right) with his brother Oleg
Photo: Photo from personal archive

It took the Moscow City Court no more than two hours to consider the appeal of Alexei Navalny’s lawyer Olga Mikhailova against the decision of the Basmanny Court, which on January 24 recognized as legal the decision of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation to initiate a criminal case against Alexei and Oleg Navalny in December last year.

Alexei Navalny’s lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, filed a complaint with the Basmanny Court of Moscow against the December investigative decision. In her complaint, the lawyer motivated the illegality of initiating a criminal case, on the one hand, by the civil relations between the Main Subscription Agency and Yves Rocher Vostok LLC, as well as by the police jurisdiction of the case at worst. On the other hand, the lawyer argued her position by the lack of grounds for initiating a criminal case: supposedly the investigation did not have materials proving the theft of any funds, as well as the involvement of Messrs. Navalny in the incriminated thefts. In her complaint, the lawyer also pointed out to the court that the applicant’s letter did not contain any amounts of theft at all, and the investigation, according to Ms. Mikhailova, “took the amounts from unknown sources without conducting a single examination.” In addition, lawyer Mikhailova emphasized in her complaint that neither the name nor the surname of Alexei Navalny appeared in the investigation materials at all, but surfaced only in the investigator’s conclusions. On January 24 of this year, the Basmanny Court, having considered the complaint, recognized the investigator’s decision to initiate the case as legal. After this, Mikhailova’s lawyer appealed to the Moscow City Court with the same arguments, which partially agreed with the defense’s arguments and overturned the decision of the trial court.

After hearing the arguments of the Navalny brothers’ lawyer and the investigator, the presiding officer announced only the operative part of the board’s decision. It followed from it that the decision of the court of first instance to recognize the legality of the initiation of a criminal case was canceled, and the complaint of Mr. Navalny’s lawyers should be considered in the same Basmanny court, but in a different composition.

According to lawyer Olga Mikhailova, the reasons why the Moscow City Court made such a decision will be clear when she receives a written decision. But, in particular, it is already known that the investigation and the court violated procedural norms: not all participants in the process were notified of the fact that a criminal case had been initiated. “We still believe that the criminal case against Navalny was justified and legal,” the Investigative Committee told Kommersant.

The Moscow City Court has just overturned the decision of the Basmanny Court, which established the legality of initiating a criminal case against me and my brother.
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) May 6, 2013

What are the Navalny brothers accused of?

On December 14, 2012, the Investigative Committee opened a case against Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg on suspicion of fraud on an especially large scale and money laundering (part 4 of article 159, paragraphs “a”, “b”, part 2 of article 174.1 of the Criminal Code RF). According to investigators, Main Subscription Agency LLC (GPA), established by the brothers through the Cypriot company Alortag Management Ltd, committed the theft of 55 million rubles in 2008-2011. from Yves Rocher Vostok LLC, with which it entered into an agreement for the shipment of goods. Read more

Why Oleg and Alexei Navalny are considered subscription agents

In April 2013, the Investigative Committee opened a new criminal case against oppositionist and blogger Alexei Navalny. According to investigators, together with his brother, first deputy general director of EMS Russian Post, a branch of Russian Post, Oleg Navalny, he committed fraud against Multidisciplinary Processing Company LLC (MPC). Read more

What role did the Kremlin play in the affairs of the Navalny brothers?

Alexei Navalny and his colleagues very much not only irritate, but also frighten the Kremlin, because they open the same Pandora’s box when public attention is drawn to criminal cases, to abuses that are present in power, starting with parliament and continuing with the Kremlin. Read more

Yuri Senatorov, Natalya Romashkova, Yulia Sapronova

The Moscow City Court sent the case of the Navalny brothers for a new trial