You can't leave the court

The defendants in the “CAR of the“ Sum ”group” could already be freed if they were sentenced. However, the “torture of the process” lasts the fifth year

On August 15, in the Meshchansky district court of Moscow, the process of the Summer Group of Companies Ziyavudin Magomedov, a former senator from the Smolensk region Magomed Magomedov and other defendants in fraud, embezzlement and creation of a criminal community, resumed. Already almost four and a half years, since March 31, 2018, they are all in prison cells.

In the consideration of the case, a break was announced due to the fact that judges are also people and have the right to leave. This right was enjoyed by the federal judge Olesya Mendeleeva, presiding in a board of three judges considering a criminal case.

However, on July 18, before recovering to relax, the court extended the arrest to all the defendants for another three months, until October.

The prosecution of the prosecutor’s request to extend the period of detention was held according to the routine scenario, which was repeated ten times over the past years.

The accusation announced a standard set of grounds in order for the defendants to remain in prison cells: “They may hide, can put pressure on witnesses, and may impede legal proceedings.”

Well, the “impenetrable” argument - the court has repeatedly extended the arrest and did not find any reason to change the preventive measure.

The defendant Sergey Polyakov, a former general director of the “United Grain Company”, which was part of the Summer group, introduced into the process. He is also accused of fraud, and in embezzlement, and in participation in the organized crime group. When the court gave him a word, he got up and said tiredly:

- The prosecutor in his petition to extend the term of arrest did not even name my last name. Has the accusation already forgot about me?

And the defendant Yuri Petrov in his own words seems to be puzzled even by judges.

Petrov worked as the general director of Eneria-M LLC. This company was one of the suppliers of equipment for the Vasileostrovskaya electrical substation in St. Petersburg, which was the construction of the Summary subsidiary.

The equipment is delivered, the substation is mounted and has long been operated, but the investigation and the prosecutor's office considered the contract concluded with Eneria-M LLC, fictitious.

The investigation and the prosecutor’s office recognized the commercial activity related to the construction and equipment of the substation.

Yuri Petrov was arrested, and he, too, has been in custody for almost four and a half years. At the same time, Petrov is charged with a single episode under the only article-Art. 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud).

“The prosecution has already brought to court more than 620 witnesses,” the defendant said his calculations. - And none of them testified that he knew me. Neither personally nor by publications in the press. I am charged with one episode under one article of the Criminal Code. Even if you take the maximum, you can put me to ten years in prison. And I have been in prison for more than four years. According to the law, the day in prison is one and a half day in the colony.

That is, I have already left for more than six years of colony. And I can already petition on parole. The court actually deprives me of the right to parole. And the prosecutor is deceiving the court, claiming that I can escape. What is the point of running away?

The emotional speech of Yuri Petrov, perhaps, puzzled Judge Olesya Mendeleev. But the decision on the defendant, who calculated that he already has the right to UDO, was similar to other persons involved in the criminal case: to extend the arrest until October.

In this criminal case, about 900 volumes and 126 boxes of material evidence. At the same time, more than 800 volumes of a criminal case are documents regarding the financial and economic activities of the Summer group. The court is obliged to study these documents and give them a legal assessment.

And in order for a conviction to be sentenced, prosecutors need to convince the court that all these documents are only similar to the present, but in fact they are fictitious.

And the “sum” group conducted financial and economic activities, then exclusively to create visibility, to cover their true goals-theft and waste of money.

This directly follows from the note to Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Organization of the criminal community”), which is charged with the brothers Magomedov and other defendants in the criminal case. And according to which they face up to 20 years in a maximum security colony.

Without this notes, the application of the “gangster” article of the Criminal Code in relation to the defendants of which the process on which continues in the philistine court of Moscow would be generally impossible. But what is this note and where did it come from?

Back in January 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin in a message to the Federal Assembly announced the need to stop using the 210th article of the Criminal Code as a punitive tool against business.

The State Duma listened to the opinion of the President of Russia. And in April 2020 in Art. 210 of the Criminal Code made amendments, which were forbidden to prosecute the founders, managers and employees of enterprises under this article.

But the State Duma left a secret door for law enforcement officers in this article, supplementing it with a note. According to which now, if the investigation assumes that the enterprise was specially created to commit serious or especially serious crimes, then the founders and managers of such a company can be held accountable under Article 210.

This loophole took advantage of the investigation within the framework of the Magomedov case. According to the version given in the indictment, the Summer group was created in 2010 specifically and specifically for waste and theft. And all the financial and economic activities of the “sum” are nothing more than a cover.

And the reconstruction of the main scene of the Bolshoi Theater, and the construction of federal tracks and oil pipelines, and the construction of a port terminal in Primorsk, and the construction of stadiums in Kazan and Kaliningrad for the World Cup - all this, according to investigators, is criminal props.

And tens of thousands of jobs in the Summer group are just the creation of the visibility of work.

And 20–25 billion rubles of taxes, which the “amount” annually transferred to budgets of all levels, it turns out, is also only a cover.

Both the Order of Honor, and the Order of Friendship, which Ziyavudin Magomedov was awarded, are awards for crimes.

... The first court hearing after a break was transferred from the Meshchansky District Court to the Moscow City Court. And it passed in closed mode. "Secret witnesses" were used. Obviously, the accusations are obviously not to cook the accusations with witnesses of the accusations: most of those 620 witnesses that the defendant Yuri Petrov counted mainly about the business projects of the Summary group, about contracts, contractors and subcontractors. And these testimonies are very badly joined with Article 210 of the Criminal Code, presented by the Magomedov brothers and other defendants in the criminal case.

We continue to monitor this trial.