Translated material
"The journalist must plant"
Why did Igor Rudnikov try to kill the editor of the independent Kaliningrad newspaper New Wheel, and now they are kept in the Lefortovo pre -trial detention center
Igor Rudnikov in the courtroom photo of the author
The UK completed the investigation of the criminal case against the ex-deputy of the Kaliningrad Regional Duma, the creator and chief editor of the popular Kaliningrad newspaper New Wheels Igor Rudnikov, accused of extorting a bribe from the main investigator of the region. The journalist begins to get acquainted with the case file in Lefortovo: the term of detention has already been extended twice, the court refuses to let go of the alleged “extortionist” for subscription.
In January 2016, Rudnikov pronounced the republican phrase: “If the journalist writes some tough things, and nothing happens to him, this is a violation of the laws of the genre. The journalist should be planted at least. And even better - to kill ... ”Two months later they attacked him with a knife and almost killed him, and a year and a half later - was thrown behind the bars.
Went to any risk
In the western region of Russia, everyone knows Rudnikov. He is called a truth -seeker and oppositionist, and his newspaper is scandalous and even “yellow”. Igor himself says that he would love to print poetry, but demand determines the proposal - such is the law of the market.
Rudnikov was born into the family of a military pilot and also dreamed of flying, but did not pass the medical board - the arrhythmia of the heart was revealed. Then he entered the faculty of military journalism in Lviv and in 1986 graduated from a gold medal. The young military commander was sent to Kaliningrad. Here he worked in the naval newspaper "Guardian of the Baltic". When the union collapsed, he invited the authorities to release a commercial application called “Wheels”. At that time, the Kaliningrad region became a transshipment point for used cars from Europe, so announcements for the sale of foreign cars and the accompanying criminal stories were very popular.
The “wheels” quickly went around the “guard of the Baltic” in circulation, but after 2.5 years the editor -in -chief demanded the application to close. Rudnikov did not put up with this and quit the service. On the security of his one-room apartment, a 30-year-old journalist borrowed $ 15 thousand and in April 1995 launched a black and white New Wheel weekly: “I went to any risk and published all the most acute that the newspaper survives,” Rudnikov recalls.
With such a philosophy, the publication lasted 23 years.
We broke the skull
At the BSMP hospital, July 1, 1998
Photo: rudnikov.com
"New Wheels" wrote about corrupt officials, corrupt security officials and criminal authorities. In 1996, Rudnikov tried to prosecute criminal liability for the publication of theft of budget money in the construction of roads. In 1998, the editorial office was thrown into the Molotov cocktail. And in the same year, Igor for the first time tried to kill - at the entrance of his house, two killers broke his skull with a gas key and reinforcement. According to Rudnikov , the crime was disclosed in two days - Colonel Ivan Dymovsky told him about this to him by the head of the criminal investigation department. However, the case was ultimately furious, because then the then governor Leonid Gorbenko (now the deceased) and his son Alexander were appeared as the alleged customers. And among the intermediaries were the vice-governor Ivan Pimenov (also deceased) and the son of a local restaurateur Alexander Kovalsky (this name will still pop up).
Rudnikov not only survived, but also found new supporters. In 1996, he elected a deputy of the city council of Kaliningrad, and since the 2000 he became a deputy of the Kaliningrad Regional Duma. There he worked four convocations, and each time he won the elections with a large margin from competitors. The last time, in September 2016, Rudnikov became the only one of the 20 single-mandate, who managed to get around United Russia.
The case of an attack on the editor was furious: the then governor Leonid Gorbenko and his son Alexander were appeared as customers as customers. And among the intermediaries were vice-governor Ivan Pimenov and the son of a local restaurateur Alexander Kovalsky
He created a mechanism for real assistance to the residents of the region: their problems were solved through deputy appeals and publications in the newspaper. According to Rudnikov’s estimates, from 2006 to 2010 he accepted citizens and sent appeals several times more than all deputies of the regional Duma together.
Puffed with a knife
In 2005, Rudnikov organized a 10-thousand-thousand-end rally of military pensioners and ensured that they are indexed by pensions. The Kaliningrad Region became the only region of Russia where this compensation was fully paid - 22 thousand families received a total of more than 800 million rubles from the budget.
Such activity was contrary to the course of the ruling party, and in 2006, Rudnikov first fell into jail. The security forces detained the car with the pre -election circulation of the "new wheels", Igor rushed off to save him and entered into a skirmish with law enforcement officers. After that, 22 police officers immediately - on the orders of his superiors - showed that the deputy had beaten them.
Despite all the absurdity of the prosecution, Rudnikov was arrested and directly from the editorial office was taken first to the local pre -trial detention center, then to the Sailor Silence (Moscow) and “Crosses” (Peter). In the end, all criminal cases broke up "due to the lack of corpus delicti."
But at rest, the chief lender was not left. On March 17, 2016, Rudnikov reacted again. In broad daylight in the center of Kaliningrad (at the exit from the cafe "Solyanka"), two bandits stabbed him two times with a knife. Igor survived only thanks to emergency assistance.
The attackers did not hide their faces and left a lot of evidence, but the police did not catch anyone. Moreover, as 19 years ago, the criminal case was opened under the article “Hooliganism”, and only after numerous complaints were re -qualified for “attempted murder”. Although Rudnikov himself asked for an investigation under Art. 277 of the Criminal Code (an encroachment on the life of a state or public figure).
Nobody ordered the killers
A month and a half later in St. Petersburg, the police detained both attackers by coincidence. According to investigators, they were former police officers Mikhail Vasyuk and Alexei Kashirin. However, the prosecution was brought only to Kashirin. At first, the court gave him only a year and a half a colony-settlement, but after appeal, the sentence was tightened up to 9 years of strict regime.
The attackers did not hide their faces and left a lot of evidence, but the police did not catch anyone. Moreover, as 19 years ago, the criminal case was opened under the article “Hooliganism”, and only after numerous complaints were re -qualified for “attempted murder”
Vasyuk is in the Kresta pre -trial detention center and is accused of several even more serious crimes, including the abduction of a person and two murders. The criminal case against him and other participants in the assassination was allocated into separate proceedings.
Rudnikov conducted his investigation and announced that the customer of the attack was the then head of Svetlogorsk Alexander Kovalsky (the same that, according to Rudnikov, was involved in the first attempt). On the shores of the Baltic Sea, in the resort town entrusted to him, the official wanted to build a 14-storey apart-hotel, and Rudnikov not only hindered this, sending deputy appeals to all kinds of instances, but also devoted the publication to Kovalsky under the offensive header “VIP-Svini on the Promenade” (it went out on the first lane “New Wheels” a week before the attempt).
Kovalsky himself denied his involvement in the attempt:
“He [Rudnikov] is just an unhealthy person, he needs to be closed in a madhouse. I was in the police, I was interrogated on this matter. I was even ready to pass a test on a lie detector. But they told me that this is not necessary: everyone already understands that I have nothing to do with it. ”
The official representative of the IC in the Kaliningrad Region Natalya Gatsko said that the investigating authorities do not have sufficient data to qualify the attempt to kill Rudnikov as a “custom crime”.
From the words of the representative of the UK, this follows that two killers flew from St. Petersburg to Kaliningrad, attacked Rudnikov who did not know them and flew back-without any selfish motives.
Stone dollars
One way or another, the regional department of the UK, which is managed by General Viktor Ledenev, was in no hurry to unravel the crime.
And soon Rudnikov learned that Ledenev moved to a chic mansion with an assessment value of $ 3 million. On the shores of the Upper Lake - in the elite district of Kaliningrad. At the same time, the official income of the general family is 3 million rubles a year. Of course, the "new wheels" wrote about it. That's just behind the bars was not sent not Ledenev, but by Rudnikov, who exposed him.
Last fall, Ledenev used the scheme that worked out, as it turned out later: he promised to transfer important documents related to the attempt to Rudnikov. But along with the documents he put $ 50 thousand in the folder with the label bills. Svetlana Berezovskaya, who was not suspected of NK, who did not suspect anything, received this folder from the general’s hands to the cafe opposite the editorial office, immediately flew by the FSB special forces and tied an unfortunate woman.
Rudnikov himself at this time was at home. After about an hour, the security forces came there, announced that the building was mined, drove the frightened residents to the street and harshly detained Igor.
According to investigators , Ledenev turned to the ex-deputy presidential envoy to the North-West, Alexander Datsishin with a request to assist in the termination of publications in “new wheels” regarding his real estate. After that, Datsyshin allegedly entered into a conspiracy with Rudnikov and put forward Ledenev a claim for a transfer of $ 50 thousand.
The editorial staff of this news caused bewilderment. Firstly, if the initiator of the “transaction” is Ledenev, then it should be judged-under Art. 304 of the Criminal Code (provocation of a bribe or commercial bribery). Secondly, you need to be crazy to extort money from the head of the regional SK. Thirdly, everything that was known about Ledenev was already printed-there is nothing to add. In addition, it soon became clear that on such a provocation, Ledenev had already lit up in Novorossiysk ( the Russian newspaper wrote in detail).
Arguments of opponents
Nevertheless, the investigation zealously got down to business. Immediately after the detention of the “suspect” they took the editorial office and arranged a search there. People in masks seized all the personal savings of Igor and his assistants Berezovskaya, as well as hard drives from all computers. The work of the newspaper was paralyzed.
By the sixth hour of the search, Rudnikov became ill, I had to call an ambulance. Igor was taken out on a stretcher and taken to the hospital. There he was imposed on his hand and determined in the hospital. However, at 2 o’clock in the morning, the special forces pulled the patient out of the bed and in his underpants and socks and took them to the regional FSB building-to continue the interrogation from the 36-year-old investigator “in particularly important matters” of the Russian Federation Andrei Koshelev, who had previously worked in the regional SK under the leadership of the very “victim” Ledenev.
Photo by the author
The human rights center "Memorial" called Igor a political prisoner. His immediate exemption was demanded by the presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, and politician Alexei Navalny, and Kaliningraders at rallies
A separate epic-with the Green Card of the United States, which, supposedly, was seized from Rudnikov at home (although in the search protocol it does not appear). According to Russian laws, "People's Chosenian" cannot have a residence permit in another state. Therefore, the prosecutor's office demanded to deprive Igor of deputy powers, and the regional student did it. The concealment of information about the Green Card is still the main argument of the opponents of the arrested editor-in-chief.
However, Rudnikov himself stated that he did not have a residence permit in the United States, and that all this is a provocation aimed at discrediting it. He even filed a lawsuit, demanding to recognize the deprivation of his mandate, but lost in the first instance. The district court was never able to get the original Green Card (it is supposed to be stored by investigator Koshelev in Moscow). But Koshelev sent a fax with a copy of the response of the American embassy, according to which Rudnikov is a resident of the States.
The interest of Moscow
In December, Igor was transferred to the Moscow Lefortovo, without explanation, and twice extended the term of detention.
Igor himself believes that he has become a “bargaining” in the subcover struggle of the Investigative Committee and the FSB. According to the accused, information about large frauds in the Kaliningrad region, in which high -ranking ranks were involved in the materials of his case, and that is why Rudnikov is in Lefortovo.
In the materials of my case, fraud surfaced with the resale of land to members of the Government of the Russian Federation. The threads from the "glass of Kovalsky" in Svetlogorsk reached out to fraud in the construction of the Kaliningrad stadium, the Amber Zone Zone and the reconstruction of the KRUBROVO airport
On May 11, the employees of the “New Wheel” had the opportunity to talk with Igor Rudnikov on the video in the Leningrad District Court of Kaliningrad (there was a lawsuit by the director of FC Baltika to our newspaper). And during the break of the mines, I made such a statement (I quote a voice record, the decoding is given on the website of the "new wheels" :
- The whole story with a chill is a kind of pretext. The key plot of business is not what is presented to me. In fact, there is a struggle within the departments - the FSB and the Investigative Committee. In the materials of my case, fraud surfaced with the resale of land to members of the Government of the Russian Federation. The threads from the "glass of Kovalsky" in Svetlogorsk were drawn to fraud in the construction of the Kaliningrad stadium, the amber zone "Amber" and the reconstruction of the Khrabrovo airport. In this regard, the names of the first persons of the state surfaced: Dmitry Medvedev, Boris Gryzlov, Sergey Ivanov and further on the list - ministers of the Government of the Russian Federation. That's the problem. In the case there are testimonies recorded by the FSB officers - who provided, who appropriated, who abducted ... theft - for billions of rubles! In connection with all this, I ended up in the Lefortovo pre -trial detention center. At the moment, all investigative actions in my case have been completed, but for a month - silence. Nothing happens! I think the pause arose in connection with the fact that investigators do not know how to be with the information received. FSB provided materials - they cannot be thrown out of the case. If you go to court, then all this will be announced at meetings. In addition, the court will be obliged to make a private ruling on the initiation of criminal cases against officials and regarding the scorps with the land.
Political prisoner
The human rights center "Memorial" called Igor a political prisoner. His immediate exemption was demanded by the presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, and politician Alexei Navalny, and Kaliningraders at rallies. So far - to no avail.
And in April the newspaper "New Wheels" closed. At someone’s team, all the retail chains were simply refused to sell it at once, and the printing house unilaterally terminated the print contract.
Until now, Rudnikov managed to leave any troubles, but now the situation is more difficult than ever. Under Part 3 of Art. 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (extortion in order to receive property on an especially large scale), he faces from 7 to 15 years in prison.
“With the current government, any unlawful decision is possible,” says Igor Mikhail Zolotarev lawyer. “But I hope that under the pressure of the international community, our authorities still have the mind to reconsider the whole thing in the plane of the law and the requirements of the Constitution.”
In the Kaliningrad Regional Prosecutor's Office and SK in the Kaliningrad region, it was verbally commenting on this story and the Rudnikov version of the custom nature of his persecution, asking for a written issue. But they did not answer him in the prosecutor’s office, and the representative of the IC proposed asking all questions in Moscow, where the arrested journalist is now.