What the Bell and the “Russian BBC service” were recognized about Alexander Sotov-the defendant of the investigation of the Dowry Center about the murder of journalists in the Constantire

On January 10, the New Gazeta published materials from the investigation of the Dossier Center on the murder of Orhan Jemal, Alexander Rastorguev and Kirill Radchenko in the Central African Republic. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation did not change the initial and convenient version of the murder of journalists during the robbery. But according to the “dossier”, the journalists from the moment of arrival in the TsA was under the cap of the local gendarme, who actively contacted the Russian citizen Alexander Sotov at that time in the TsA. Sotov himself, as shown by Dossier data, worked for people related to the structures of businessman Evgeny Prigozhin and was listed as a military instructor. The Bell and the BBC Russian Service told Sotov's biography.

"Impressed as Vysotsky took a pickpocket"

Alexander Sotov was born on June 2, 1976 in St. Petersburg in a military family. His father Alexander Sotov Sr. was a graduate of the branch of the Military Academy in Volsk and, as one of the distant relatives of the family told The Bell, tried to send young people from related families there to study and service “through his connections”, but no one “wanted to become a warrior”. “In their family there was always a cult of serving the Motherland,” recalls a friend of the youth of Sotov Sr..

According to The Bell, after graduating from a regular school in the sleeping area of ​​St. Petersburg, Sotov Jr. began to work on a criminal investigation department. “Sasha always dreamed of being a cop. At one time, he was very impressed by the scene in which Vysotsky took a pickpocket, throwing him a wallet at the time of detention ( the scene from the film “The Place of the Meeting cannot be changed” - approx. Ed. ). Sotov, working in the bodies, also specialized in the fight against pickpockets, ”one of Sotov’s relatives told the publication.

According to the assumption of the “dossier”, it was in the police that Sotov could get acquainted with Valery Zakharov, who now holds the post of “presidential adviser” to the Central African Republic and is associated with the structures of Yevgeny Prigozhin. They could be colleagues for operational-search management (external observation) of the Main Directorate of the Police of St. Petersburg.

The cooperation of Valery Zakharov with structures working in the interests of businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin is indicated in the investigation of the “Dossier” and openly - in the report of the joint group “RIA FAN” (called Prigozhinsky) and “Fontanka.ru”, who went to the Central Academy of Sciences in August 2018 to investigate the murder of Jemal, Rastorguev and Radchenko.

Crime, the guard, decided, candidate for deputies

In the early 2000s, writes The Bell, Sotov’s career made a round towards the security business: he worked in the Safety Service of the St. Petersburg company Dorozhnik-92, as well as in the security enterprises of Excalibur and Petrounion Guard. The latter was a security company in the structure of the large St. Petersburg investment group "Petroonion", led by Ilya Kligman. In 2008, Kligman was arrested as the alleged “shadow accountant” of the Tambov organized crime group, whose leader, Vladimir Barsukov, is previously better known under the surname Kumarin as the “night governor” of St. Petersburg.

According to the Russian BBC Service, in 2003, Sotov graduated from the Lesgaft St. Petersburg Academy of Physical Culture, in 2013 a person with the same name was indicated as a undergraduate of St. Petersburg University of Management and Economics. In addition, Alexander Sotov appears as a co-author of the scientific work “Human Rights Activities as a Direction of the Criminal Policy of the Russian Federation,” writes the Russian BBC Service.

In 2007, Sotov, together with several acquaintances, including the founder of the Excalibur, the reserve officer Dmitry Kurlesov, registered a public organization entitled “The Commission for Combating Corruption, Terrorism and Extremism of Society and Security”.

According to one of the co-founders of Society and Safety, Dmitry Kurlesov, the organization was created by former law enforcement officials to support the siblical veterans, but it "actually did not conduct any activities."

According to The Bell, the results of the “struggle” of this organization with corruption, terrorism and extremism in open sources were not found.

Under the anti -corruption company, the arbitration court was registered, and Sotov became a temporary arbitration manager under him - he helped to resolve commercial disputes as a third party. But the court quickly closed - after a judicial reform. Now the legal entity is in the liquidation stage, writes The Bell, and himself

Sotov is interested in the bailiffs: as follows from the open data that the Bell quotes, they want to recover about 100 thousand rubles from him.

As one of Sotov’s acquaintances, whose name is not called the “BBC service”, told the Russian Service, “Sasha is the quietest person, a modest arbitration manager,” who previously served in the internal organs.

In parallel with work in Society and Security, Sotov joined the LDPR and tried to run for municipal deputies of the district No. 65 in the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg, but did not even register.

Businessman

In 2016, Sotov registered the Olymp leasing company: it finished a year with a loss of more than 300 thousand rubles, and already in the summer of 2017 he rewrote the company to another person, after which its loss grew to 17 million rubles.

Resident and coherent

According to the Dossier investigation, around 2017, Sotov joined the Wagner PMC. This is evidenced by Sotov’s personal number-“M-5661”, indicated in a number of documents about the work of Sotov in the Civil Protection and Environmental Council, which was published by the “New Gazeta”. The number on the format coincides with the personal numbers of the employees of the Wagner Group - the number five thousand and more met with Wagner fighters, recruited no earlier than 2017.

One of these documents is a “list of instructors” of 16 surnames, in which Zakharov is indicated as “the head of the group of instructors”, and Sotov is “an“ external observation, counter -observation, recruitment, and agent work ”, that is, a subordinate Zakharov.

From the billing of mobile negotiations made in the “dossier”, it is known that during July-August 2018-it was then that Dzhemal’s trip, Rastorguev and Radchenko in the Central African Republic took place, and the investigation of their murder began-Zakharov was connected more than a hundred times by phone with the subscriber numbers, as the “dossier” states, under a stranger, Sotov used.

According to the “dossier”, the local gendarme Emmanuel Kotofifio, who kept contact with the driver of the killed journalists and was at the place of their murder in the company of two Africans and three Europeans, was constantly coordinated. And soon received a promotion.