On August 30, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court upheld the decision of the Krasnoturinsk City Court, which had previously refused to remove candidate Sergei Verkhoturov from the elections for the head of the city, which will be held on September 8, Znak.com reported. The applicant is the elected head of Krasnoturinsk, but now he is temporarily suspended from his position due to suspicion of extorting a large bribe. The author of the lawsuit to remove Verkhoturov from the elections was another candidate for the post of head of the city, nominated by United Russia - a protege of the regional authorities, Alexander Ustinov.

The investigation has not yet brought charges against Verkhoturov and has not been able to interrogate him as an accused, since Verkhoturov was first hospitalized in the cardiology department of the Krasnoturinsk City Hospital No. 1, and then transferred for treatment to the Sverdlovsk Regional Clinical Hospital No. 1. As previously reported, according to the investigation, from November 1, 2009 to January 31, 2010 (a more precise period is being established by the investigation), the head of Krasnoturinsk, during a meeting in his office, demanded that the general director of a private enterprise give him a bribe of 20 thousand rubles every month through an intermediary. . For this, the mayor allegedly promised the businessman that in the spring, when restrictions were introduced on the movement of trucks on city roads, he would receive permission for the unimpeded passage of the organization’s trucks transporting copper ore along the roads of Krasnoturinsk to the processing plant on Sosvinskaya Street. According to the case materials, if he refused to hand over the bribe, Verkhoturov threatened to interfere with the issuance of such permits. As a result, the general director agreed with the mayor’s demands and, from March 2010 to August 2012, transferred more than 570 thousand rubles to Verkhoturov’s card. As a result, a case was initiated against the head of the municipality under Part 5 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (extortion of a large bribe). Verkhoturov himself connects his criminal case with the election campaign of the head of the city.

Let us add that according to the newspaper “Evening Krasnoturinsk”, they are again trying to remove Sergei Verkhoturov from the elections, but now the initiator is another candidate – Olesya Tulskaya. She sent an application to the Krasnoturinsky City Court to cancel the registration of Verkhoturov, Ustinov and another contender, the LDPR nominee Ildus Khakimov.

Tulskaya refers to the violation of copyright by these candidates, in particular, the use of trademarks without the consent of their owners. For example, at meetings with voters, Alexander Ustinov said that he buys groceries in a specific store in the city. According to Tulskaya, Ustinov, before naming the store, should have asked permission to use this name in his campaign.

Sergei Verkhoturov published a photograph of several cars from different manufacturers standing behind him. This, Tulskaya believes, is also an illegal use of trademarks. Sergei Verkhoturov also had to ask the car manufacturers for consent.

As for Ildus Khakimov, on the publication’s forum one of the users posted interesting quotes from Tulskaya’s lawsuit (at least, it is claimed that these are excerpts from the document). “In his speech, candidate Khakimov called for “fight”, speaking about a market economy. Also, speaking about the problems of society, he called for the fight against indifference. Candidate Khakimov called for a fight for the city, due to the fact that socially important facilities were closed. Ildus Khakimov also called for fighting so as not to die.” Further in the text, definitions of the words “fight” and “fight” are given according to the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. Tulskaya believes that (quote again) “from the definitions of these words, when used in the sense of interaction with something, these words are used in the sense of using violence. The use of violence is an unacceptable phenomenon in modern society. … Candidate Khakimov’s speech is aimed at inciting violence among voters.”

The Sverdlovsk Regional Court left the head of Krasnoturinsk under investigation on the list of candidates for the September 8 elections