The confrontation between the two departments on the high-profile case of "protection" of the Moscow region casino continues
What the organizer of an illegal gambling business in Moscow suburbs will definitely go down in Russian history is that he managed not to quarrel weakly between two respected departments - the Investigative Committee of Russia and the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. Although it is unlikely that the shadow businessman Ivan Nazarov dreamed of such a mission.
Not only that, the “gambling king” of the Moscow Region also had the very noble honor to bring various unsightly nuances to the work of the two departments from the deep behind-the-scenes depths of God, some of the employees of one of which, as you might suspect, were in that story “not without Sin ”, while their opponents showed low administrative qualities. And summarizing, one can question the very effectiveness of the once separation of the investigation from supervision. The latest news on the “case of Moscow prosecutors” only reinforce this doubt.
That is, those who are closely following the development of events around the exposure of the network of underground casinos in the Moscow region, could not help but note some features in the tactics of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation and the Investigative Committee in this matter. We will not groundlessly throw bold assumptions, but nevertheless we note a pattern: the actions of the Prosecutor General’s Office for some outlandish coincidence go against the actions of the TFR. Simply put, the first agency puts the second stick in the wheel, which the representatives of the investigation have already complained about the very, very top. The prosecutor’s office in response is traditionally insulted in the style of “what are you hinting at?” and points to procedural flaws in the actions of investigators - they say, work as it should, according to the law, and we will be your faithful companions. And in general the necessary disciplinary measures to the fined defendants, the Prosecutor General’s Office applied, what else does this TFR need?
The matter, I remember, even went so far as in the spring of 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev invited the heads of the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office Alexander Bastrykin and Yuri Chaika “to the carpet,” he listened, sympathized, but demanded to make peace.
And now - a new plot, threatening to develop into a new battle of the titans of jurisprudence.
In January of this year, one of the defendants in the “case of prosecutors” - the first deputy prosecutor of the Moscow Region (now former) Alexander Ignatenko - was detained in the vicinity of the ski resort of Zakopane by members of the Polish internal security agency. Earlier, an official accused by the investigation of “protecting” an illegal gambling business in the Moscow Region was put on the international wanted list, and his detention was carried out through Interpol. At the end of January, the TFR decided to send an investigative-operational group to Poland to interrogate the accused. To carry out this procedure, however, is still not possible - and for a purely bureaucratic reason. The Prosecutor General's Office refuses to send an appropriate request to Polish colleagues, who must authorize the operational and investigative measures of the Russian side in the territory of its jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, the corresponding “request for inquiry” was sent on January 23 by the head of the main investigative department of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Schukin, to the main department of international legal cooperation of the Prosecutor General of Russia. The rush of the investigators did not find a response in the main supervisory department - the paper returned to the Academician Tupolev embankment with a cover letter signed by the head of the department of the Prosecutor General’s Office Alexander Kupriyanov. In it, among other things, it was also indicated that the Prosecutor General’s Office, having examined the request of the Investigative Committee, came to the conclusion “about the discrepancy of the submitted request with the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation and international treaties of the Russian Federation,” Kommersant reports.
The answer from the Prosecutor General’s Office amazed the investigators. The subject of his surprise in a letter addressed to Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev outlined the Deputy Chairman of the TFR Vasily Piskarev. In his objection, Mr. Piskarev cited examples of such requests that the TFR had previously sent to the Prosecutor General and successfully coordinated. Thus, the investigator suggested that the prosecutors not to impede the work and consider the appeal from the TFR repeatedly and as soon as possible.
The direct incrimination of the Prosecutor General’s office in “obstructing” the activities of the Investigative Committee is itself a challenge. But business ethics still prevailed - both there and there they pretended significantly that a misunderstanding had occurred, although it is unlikely that the Investigative Committee seriously hoped that the Prosecutor General’s repeated response to their request for legal assistance would not be a simple photocopy of the first.
The actions of fellow prosecutors marveled at one of the defendants in the case with the “protection” of the Moscow region casinos - the former deputy prosecutor of the Moscow region Stanislav Buyansky, who is the main witness in the Ignatenko case. According to him, the Prosecutor General’s office is simply afraid that during the interrogation, the former deputy prosecutor of the Moscow Region will tell a lot of interesting things about the involvement of employees of the main supervisory department.
“It is obvious that the Prosecutor General’s Office is trying to maximally delay the moment of Ignatenko’s interrogation. For a long time I worked in the department of international legal cooperation and I don’t remember a single case when the investigation was refused to send such a request to foreign partners, ”Mr. Buyansky said in an interview with Kommersant .
The version that the obstacles posed by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation is dictated by ordinary fear is indirectly confirmed by the words of another accused in the “case of Moscow prosecutors”. So, in October 2011, the former head of the Moscow Oblast Prosecutor’s Office, Dmitry Urumov, said in an interview with the same publication that during his last conversation with Ignatenko, he allegedly said: “If they take me, I’ll hand over the prosecutor general first.”
It’s clear that it’s impossible to verify the authenticity of those words. However, there are facts - and they are a stubborn thing - that, from the point of view of logic, fit very well on their background: the Prosecutor General’s Office (and this was the subject of Bastrykin’s complaint “who needs it”) prevented the arrest of the former Moscow Region prosecutor, which, as the investigators assure, actually helped he took refuge abroad, and after Ignatenko was put on the international wanted list for several months, he did not authorize his search for the Russian bureau of Interpol.
Of course, for purely formal reasons.
A new round of conflict between the TFR and the Prosecutor General’s Office in a conversation with a KM.RU columnist was commented by a deputy of the State Duma, deputy chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Gennady Gudkov:
- Some, against the background of all these disputes between departments, suggest combining them into one - this is wrong. They cannot be combined, because it is impossible to keep the investigation and supervision of the investigation in one bottle. But the fact that order must be put in place there and that intervention of a third force is simply necessary here is beyond doubt. Because when the prosecutor’s office essentially works there, it’s good, and when it begins to catch on formalities and clearly “defends the honor of the uniform”, the intervention of the president and parliament is necessary.
We need to seriously understand what is really happening there: either there was in fact a violation of the rules of the CPC and international agreements, or it was simply a “defense of the uniform’s honor”. I’m afraid that the TFR and the Prosecutor General’s Office themselves will not be able to resolve this conflict and outside intervention will be needed in any case. Perhaps we will consider this conflict at a meeting of our committee. This is a very important matter - it is impossible to go too far, but we cannot also work on this issue. Cases when it comes to the likelihood of a merger of the prosecutor's office with criminals should be brought to an end.
Source:
https://www.km.ru/v-rossii/2012/03/02/ig ... ne-khotyat
