One man said to another - eight years in prison

At the appeal in the case of Alexei Ulyukaev, Igor Sechin testified. Reporting Sasha Sulim

On April 12, the Moscow City Court examined an appeal to Alexei Ulyukaev - the former Minister of Economic Development in December, in December eight years for extorting a bribe from the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin. During the meeting, the prosecution unexpectedly summoned Sechin himself for the interrogation, which had previously ignored the process; He gave his testimony closed. As a result, the court left the sentence to Ulyukaev with virtually unchanges, softening it in only one paragraph - now, after the release, the former minister will have the right to occupy public positions. The meeting was followed by the Special Corps of Medusa Sasha Sulim.

After three months spent in the pre -trial detention center, the former Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev lost a noticeably and looked as if he had grown up for several years. Always short-cut hair of the ex-official has grown; He came to the meeting without a book (when he was judged in the fall, the former minister came to court with a new book almost every time - he took only his notes for the debate and the last word with him. Ulyukaev did not communicate with the press - he only said that he was feeling "good, normal."

When all those present were settled, the ex-minister began to look for someone in the hall-but, it seems, he did not find anyone. There were no Ulyukaev relatives at today's meeting.

The former minister, despite his tired appearance, answered the questions of the chairman of the appeal collegium Olga Nedenina loudly and clearly. Four of his lawyers asked the court to introduce a certificate of the state of their client’s health (he had a number of diseases, but the state of health of Ulyukaev is satisfactory) and his family members: his father, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War - and Mother, a disabled person of the second group. The petition was satisfied.

Then the judge read out the petition of Ulyukaev himself: he asked the court to allow his wife Julia Khryapin to allow the process as his public defender. When asked why he needed another defender, and even without a legal education, the former minister did not answer. The prosecution also did not understand how Khryapina intends to defend Ulyukaev, and the court rejected this petition.

Judge Fedorova read the appeal of lawyers, but she pronounced the text quietly and fuzzy. Only fragments of phrases came to the listeners, and in the end, almost all in the hall stopped listening to what the judge said - only the lawyers sometimes frowned, trying to make out the words, and the former minister himself carefully looked at Fedorov, abandoning his leg.

The text of the complaint ended with a transfer of various titles of the former minister, information about his state of health and a request to cancel the sentence or impose a sentence to Ulyukaev without real serving the deadline. The prosecution, in turn, reminded the court that she considers the sentence reasonable, and the punishment is fair.

The most unexpected happened a few more petitions later, when the prosecutor asked Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft as a witness. “The evidence of the witness is provided,” he said (earlier at a meeting in the case of Ulyukaev Sechin did not appear) “and immediately asked for interrogation in closed mode, referring to the fact that the documents that would be discussed were protected by a commercial secret.

The lawyer Timofey Gridnev reminded the court that the process of privatization of Bashneft, which will also be discussed during the interrogation (precisely for a positive assessment of this transaction, according to the prosecution, Ulyukaev extorted a bribe from Sechin), public. In addition, in the court of first instance, the recording of the conversation of Ulyukaev and Sechin was already listened to, during which they discussed all the details of the transaction on the privatization of Bashneft.

“The court cannot put the court participants in the unequal conditions. Why did we not interrogate the former minister in closed mode? " - Milk was perplexed. The court left his question unanswered - Sechin was interrogated in closed mode.

As the head of Rosneft entered the courtroom and left it, none of the journalists saw - Sechin was led through the convoy entrance. Due to the lack of information in the corridors, rumors were born:

- They say he is already there! - She said, looking at the phone, a journalist of one of the information agencies.

- Already confessed everything? - the operator specified her.

- Yes. And he had already sat down in a neighboring aquarium, ”the colleague supported the joke.

The interrogation of Sechin lasted about an hour and a half, and when the press was again launched into the hall, all the participants in the process were noticeably annoyed and argued about something.

The lawyers of Alexei Ulyukaev asked the court to postpone the meeting until Monday to adjust the protection line, but the judges decided that there would be enough two -hour break for this.

During the break, one of the lawyers told reporters that he and his colleagues were not waiting for Sechin's appearance, but he was still not surprised: “Apparently, the Moscow City Court said that without the testimony of the main witness this is not a sentence.” The defender also explained what they argued with the accusation: "We insisted on our right to refer to Sechin’s testimony in the debate, and the prosecution opposed." In this - rare - case the court did not meet the prosecution, allowing the testimony of the head of Rosneft.

After the break, the meeting continued with an repeated interrogation of Alexei Ulyukaev. One of his lawyers asked if he could confirm that at the Brix summit in the fall of 2016 in Goa, he extorted a bribe from Sechin, while with him and other members of the Russian delegation he climbed the stairs.

Ulyukaev in response explained that at such events, members of the government and business representatives are rare.

- With a witness Sechin, we crossed for one minute, I did not have time to extort a bribe. The delegation was a single array, ”the ex-minister added.

The debate began lawyer Timofei Gridnev. “Today there was an amazing event: Igor Sechin came to us and admitted that Alexei Ulyukaev could not influence the privatization of“ Bashneft ”, and the only body that has such powers is the Russian government,” the defender said. According to him, this is perhaps the only testimony of Sechin that seem to him to deserve trust. Gridnev drew the attention of the court that here Sichin actually took the side of the defense.

The next argument of Gridnev was that the court and investigation could not determine the place and time when his client extorted a bribe from Sechin. According to the lawyer, the head of Rosneft stated in court that Ulyukaev demanded a bribe from him at the moment when they climbed the stairs to the second floor. “Igor Sechin claims that they climbed the stairs for ten minutes - during this time it was possible to reach the eighth floor,” Gridnev reasoned. “It is difficult for me to imagine how it was possible to extort a bribe at all, so I consider these indications far -fetched, artificial and implausible.”

According to the defender, the interrogation of Sechin gave rise to a huge number of new questions to the investigation. Gridnev examined in detail the day of the arrest of Alexei Ulyukaev in the office of Rosneft. “The court believes that my client confirmed the receipt of a bribe when he agreed to come to the Rosneft office, although the entire telephone conversation that was preceding this does not contain a word about his desire to get a bribe,” the lawyer said. “It turns out that the logic is this: if you did not want to get a bribe, then you didn’t have to go, but if you went, then you wanted to.”

He recalled that Sechin confirmed that it was he who initiated a conversation with the ex-minister on the day of arrest. In court, according to Gritnev, Sechin explained his act as follows: on October 21, 2016 he received a letter from the Ministry of Economic Development “with not very convenient” for Rosneft with the prices of privatization of the Bashneft shares, and this was the basis for him to believe that Alexei Ulyukaev asks for a bribe. “The Ministry of Economic Development should observe the interests of the state, and not Rosneft,” said Gridnev. “If someone has a desire to give money to someone, this is not a reason to say that the minister does not fulfill his duties well.”

According to him, on the day of the arrest, Ulyukaev was not going to go to Sichin or call him, but the head of Rosneft resorted to various “lure” and persuaded Ulyukaev to come. “He could not refuse an invitation to visit, it was indecent,” the lawyer explained. - And Sechin was not going to show Ulyukaev the company's office or discuss the deal. When he called him, the bag of money was already prepared. ”

According to the lawyer, his client did not know what exactly was in the bag, and the circumstances of their meeting did not suggest that he could ask about this: they stood on the street, the bag was closed to the lock with the key, ask what in it would show distrust - especially since at the Summit in Gaa Sechin promised to give him several bottles of wine. “Igor Sechin’s testimony changed the situation, which means that the verdict is subject to cancellation due to the lack of corpus delicti,” concluded Gridnev.

The rest of the lawyers Alexei Ulyukaev supported the arguments of his colleague and drew the attention of the court to others, including the procedural violations that were committed during the process.

During the debate, Ulyukaev himself read his arguments from a specially brought folder with documents, meticulously calling the number of the verdict page to which he refers. His arguments in many respects coincided with those that were already voiced by defense. The former minister called the version of the head of Rosneft about the extorting of a bribe on the stairs of the "absurd".

“If you constantly repeat:“ it’s hot for me, it’s hot, it’s hot for me ”, perhaps after some time you will become a little warmer,” the prosecutor Boris Holly began his response in the debate. - Protection, like mantras, repeats the same arguments. And the side of the prosecution has something to answer to each of them. ” The accusation said that Igor Sechin’s testimony is completely consistent with other evidence and evidence and confirm the validity of the sentence.

“Today, a lot of strange and incomprehensible was sounded from the side of protection today: why it was uncomfortable to refuse to meet with Sechin to Minister Ulyukaev,” continued the non -condensed. “Because he went for his money, set aside urgent affairs, because he took his self -interest.”

According to his version, Ulyukaev not only demanded a bribe of two million dollars at a Summit in Goa, but also knew that he was in a bag that the head of Rosneft presented him in the company's office: “I can understand the defendant, he is trying to make excuses, but the protection without doubt pronounces the stupid versions.”

“Why does he insult us?” - interrupted the prosecutor Victoria Burkovskaya.

““ A stupid version ”is an appraisal judgment,” Larisa Kashtanova supported her colleague.

“Do not interfere with the process, he does not insult you,” the judge answered them.

“The version of the defendant and his defense is insolvent and contradictory, the trial court appointed a fair punishment,” the prosecutor concluded his speech.

In his last word, Alexei Ulyukaev said that he was completely innocent. He stated that the court of first instance was not provided with a single evidence of the demand of the bribe. “The verdict was built on a single, indirect ... certificate, fabricated by a well -known principle: OBC,“ one grandmother said, ”the former minister said. - In this case, the transformation: compulsory medical insurance, “one man said”. One man said that he heard the other man told him how the third man demanded money from him. ”

Ulyukaev also spoke of the triumph of the “newly -minted principle of guilt”: “I was announced in advance because I am the accused.” The ex-Minister also quoted one of the characters in Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll: ““ Let the sentence be sentenced, but we are guilty or not, then we’ll figure it out ”-this logic was guided by the judge of the Zamoskvoretsky court.” In the final, Alexei Ulyukaev asked the court to make a fair decision in his case.

Half an hour later, the court left the sentence to the former minister in force on all points - with one exception: now Ulyukaev is not prohibited after serving the sentence to occupy positions in state bodies.

A minute after the announcement of Ulyukaev in handcuffs, convoys were taken out of the hall. His lawyers refused to comment on the verdict.

Sasha Sulim