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Explanation of Investigative Committee in connection with article published in Novaya Gazeta

In connection with the article MoscowYurt published in today’s issue of Novaya Gazeta the Russia’s Investigative Committee informs that investigation of a criminal case over an abduction and extortion upon the application of Grigory (the information about the person is not exposed in the interest of investigation and the victim, I can only say that he has a Georgian last name) is conducted in accordance with criminal procedure legislation.

I would like to upset all those who are keen on sensations straight away. Certain officers of the Russian Federal Security Service who came to the newspaper were invented by the author of the article. It is very easy to explain – the officers of the Federal Security Service have never carried out the operational support of this criminal case. It has been and is still carried on by operational officers of the interior Ministry.

As for the criminal case itself, there was at first 11 people detained, seven of them have been charged with crimes under paragraphs “a”, “c”, “d” and “h” of part 2 of article 126 of the RF Criminal Code and paragraphs “a” and “c” of part 2 of article 163 (abduction and extortion). Involvement of other four of the detainees was not confirmed during the investigation, so they were released. From the seven detainees the court placed 5 in custody.

As for the five accused police officers. Their nationality does not matter for the investigation. But it does matters that they are police officers who committed offences. By the way I can give you statistics: last year 174 officers of interior bodies were detained in Moscow alone for committing 344 crimes. And never their nationality was either an extenuating or aggravating circumstance. In accordance with paragraph “h” of part 1 of article 61 of the RF Criminal Code the extenuating circumstance for the accused can be unlawful or immoral behavior of the victim. And the victim in this criminal case has been repeatedly convicted of autotheft and served his time in prison. This to some degree effected the decision on changing the pretrial restraining measure for the detainees. Bu the main circumstances effecting the change in the pretrial restraining measure was the fact that the investigating operations with the accused had already been finished.

And by the way, I would like to say about another canard alleging that the investigator of the case has been dismissed – I will upset all those who were rubbing their hands expecting to enjoy the lack of any restraint of the senior officials of the Moscow Main Investigations Directorate. Investigator Chingis (and not Chingiz as the author writes) Berikov quit last October and named the reason as family circumstances.

In conclusion I would like to say that there has been no talk about dropping this case. I guarantee that it will be finished and sent to court.

Head of Media Relations Directorate                                                                                  V.I. Markin