Interview

Valery Zadorin told VV about new powers of Sverdlovsk Region Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee and high-profile cases where these powers are used

At the beginning of September it turns 5 years since Russian prosecutor’s office had a new body – Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Prosecutor’s Office which then (on 15 January 2011) was reorganized into an independent agency – Russia’s Investigative Committee. On the eve of the anniversary Head of Sverdlovsk Region Investigations Directorate of the SKR Valery Zadorin told about changes that had taken place in his agency and about new details in the case of Fedorovich.

- Mr Zadorin, tell us please about powers of Investigative Committee and about expansions SKR Chairman Alexander Bastrykin has recently said about.

- In accordance with the law on SK we solve tasks related to investigation of serious and very serious crimes including official malfeasances. In addition investigators are to inquire into reasons of crimes, that is, they are engaged in crime prevention. On 7 September 2012 it will be five years since Russian prosecutor’s office had a new body in its structure – Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Prosecutor’s Office, which in January last year was reorganized into an independent authority – Investigative Committee of Russia. Our powers have been expanded since 1 January 2012 – SK of Russia now is to investigate criminal cases over serious and very serious crimes committed by minors and against minors. Last year we faced one more innovation – our jurisdiction includes tax crimes which earlier were investigated by investigating bodies of Ministry of Internal Affairs. We had to adjust co-operation with Ministry of Internal Affairs and tax police in this area on the run.

As for specific figures we may say that if over 7 months last year investigators had in their proceedings about 2,600 criminal cases, this year with the same number of investigators there are already 3,600 cases. And we have forwarded to the court almost 300 cases more than last year. These figures concern only criminal cases, but we should not forget that we respond to other messages received by SKR bodies on which investigators undertake pre-investigation checks. Over seven months this year alone we have received about 32,000 messages on crimes (over 7 months last year the number of such messages was about 27,000) which also take time and efforts.

One more initiative of Mr Bastrykin is related to establishment of expert divisions. In Sverdlovsk Region, as it is the geographical center of the Urals Federal District, there has been set up an independent expert forensic department composed of 4 specialists of engineering expertise and 6 specialists of phonoscope expertise. These people work not only in Sverdlovsk Region, but also in other areas of the Urals Federal District.

- Can you say that there is a kind of competition between power structures, between MVD and SK in investigation of criminal cases?

- There is no competition because each agency has certain terms of references in its own scope of activities. Investigators of MVD also have a large layer of crimes and they have to make a very serious work. The same can be said about other related agencies, such as Federal Service for Control of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Circulation of the Russian Federation (FSKN). Even more so now that requirements for investigations are higher than ever. This can be seen even in interrelation with the courts – if before the psychiatric examination was not necessary in a number of cases, now it is required almost in any case. It’s not competition, but close enough co-operation between the agencies and building relations based on the tasks.

- What are your relations with prosecutor’s office, with RF Deputy Prosecutor General’s Office in the Urals Federal District?

- Prosecutor’s Office is first of all a supervisory body controlling observance of laws in all spheres of our life including procedural activity of investigating bodies. On the other hand, one of Prosecutor’s Office’s areas is co-ordination of efforts to combat crime. I, for instance, as a member of co-ordination council participate in all meetings held by Sverdlovsk Prosecutor’s Office or Deputy Prosecutor General in the Urals Federal District.

- What are your personal relationships with Chief of Main Directorate of Ministry of Internal Affairs Mikhail Borodin, with prosecutor Yuri Ponomaryov?

- We have only business relations without any resentment or reproaches. We have some problems which don’t let us move on together, but gradually we are overcoming them. We have a lot of common tasks, so we work together and keep good relations.

- How would you assess the work of Mikhail Borodin?

- I don’t have the right to give any assessment to work of lieutenant general of police. In general I would say that the level of co-operation between our agencies is high enough, particularly in the area of investigation and solving serious and very serious crimes. There are some difficulties, but they are mainly due to external factors, such as personnel potential. But this does not stop us from investigating cases against officials of internal affairs bodies. By the way, in this respect we are one of leading directorates throughout the country. Last year we received about 2,000 reports against policemen, we initiated 157 criminal cases and prosecuted 196 people. I think that Mikhail Borodin does a lot to develop his Directorate though he is criticized. There always are objective reasons why it’s impossible to solve all the problems. We keep high percentage of criminal cases solved in our region on such cases. By the way, our percentage of very serious crimes solved is higher than in the average in country, which speaks a lot about the level of co-operation between our agencies. Besides, we have a general slight reduction in the number of crimes registered.

Director of Vechrniye Vedomosti Denis Tokarsky and Head of Sverdlovsk Region Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee Valery Zadorin

- Recently the memorial to the first Russia’s president Boris Yeltsin was vandalized. Is the article for vandalism within jurisdiction of SK?

- The crime is investigated by Ministry of Internal Affairs. And I as a Russian citizen have extremely negative attitude towards this action.

- Can the case on vandalism later be re-qualified for more serious article and if so which one?

- I am not certain whether this case may be qualified as more serious crime under the current law. If we talk about some kind of damage to property than, it is likely that investigators will consider the chance of qualifying the action as a different crime.

- Today there are three highly-discussed topics related to investigations in Sverdlovsk Region – they are the above mentioned vandalism, Fedorovich case and cases concerning the fund Gorod bez narkotikov (City without drugs). As for the latter, it is known that there are proceedings over a crime under part 2 of article 127 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code – illegal deprivation of liberty against two or more persons. Does that mean that there are testimonies of several people and who might go into prisoner’s box?

- Currently investigating bodies of Regional SKR are investigating a criminal case over part 2 of article 109 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (negligent homicide owing to the improper discharge by a person of his professional duties) over the death in central city hospital in Beryozovsky of a 29-year-old woman of Nizhny Tagil, who was delivered there from women’s rehab owned by the fund Gorod bez narkotikov (located in the village of Sarapulka of Beryozovsky city district). The case was opened to find out all the circumstances of the woman’s death by investigative means.

I know that investigating bodies of MVD Main Directorate have initiated a case over part 1 of article 127 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (illegal deprivation of liberty). And in the process of investigation there are signs of part 2 of the same article (that is the crime committed by a group of persons against two or more persons) and this is the jurisdiction of SK. Accordingly the case was forwarded to Sverdlovsk Region Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee for further investigation. In addition, considering that in the firs and the second cases actions and persons are closely linked we combined the two cases into one lawsuit.

It’s too early to speak about somebody’s guilt or some specific individuals. It is not known yet how much time investigation will take. The medical forensic commission expertise relating to circumstances of the woman’s death is still underway. Let the woman’s parents understand our actions correctly. The law gives us the right of exhumation if needed and we had to do that to reliably assess to what extent the cause of death corresponds to the one that was established at first. There were a lot of publications on this subject. But I repeat once more we act not to please somebody or against somebody’s interests, but for more careful establishment of all the circumstances of the crime.

Valery Zadorin: “There are grounds to think that Yekaterinburg blogger might be involved in other crimes”.

- Can you say how many cases there are in the so called case of Vasily Fedorovich and his accomplices? And how many episodes is Fedorovch personally involved in?

- Last week there were plenty of publications, among them were even such claiming that there were 40 very serious crimes. This is not true. It was April when we initiated a criminal case over murder of USA citizen Kar Yakubyan. As of today a number of suspects are detained, others are wanted, and now we are working actively to identify and detain them. The famous blogger Vasily Fedorovich is charged with a crime under part 2 of article 105 (murder) and part 2 of article 126 (abduction of a person committed by a group of persons). This way, according to investigators’ information, in April this year the blogger together with three other people kidnapped a 17-year-old teenager to get back a laptop computer. Having taken the teenager to a forest the perpetrators forced out of him information about the person involved in disappearance of the laptop. After that they let the victim go. Besides, according to investigators this April the blogger together with three other people stolen money from a young man earlier acquainted with the blogger and then killed him. There are grounds to think that Yekaterinburg blogger might be involved in other crimes. I can give information that there are now 9 crimes in the case, but there are actually much more – misappropriation, stealing of property and money, mercenary interest. Investigators are working on all versions and circumstances, but we will say about that later.

- You said that it was a group of several people. Can you say how many?

- At first we talked about 5 members, but now the circle is getting bigger. It is difficult to say how many exactly for now. We are working on it, there are a lot of crimes and somebody else could have been involved. We have managed to take up crimes of 2008-2009 which were not solved, people disappeared there. Today we have reliable evidence proving the guilt of the people we have detained. We are working hard now.

- Fedorovich writes in his blog about his staying in the pre-trial prison, about details of investigation. How does it happen and how normal is it?

- Each participant of legal process has the right to protection, especially the accused one. There can be not one lawyer, but a dozen of them, if a person has money. I think the lawyers do that. Investigators are now working to stop it. The lawyers are under written undertaking not to reveal information. And in case it repeats (the blog may reveal some details of investigation) we will have to raise the question on possible prosecution of the people who do that.

- There are 29 stories in Fedorovich’s blog. There he vividly describes some facts of his biography. Are you analyzing this information?

- Criminologists are carefully studying them right now, linguistic examination has been assigned as well. There are grounds to assume that the events described in the stories happened in real life. They for example mention the murder in Gipsy village. All this information is being checked now.

- What is the American party doing? Is it expressing any interest to murder of the USA citizen?

- We had visitors from consulate, they participated in investigating operations, namely during identification of the body. We contact the victim’s relatives through the consulate.

- You said that some of the suspects started active co-operation with the investigators. What are their testimonies?

- The main suspects, including Fedorovich, at first denied everything and thought that the charges were groundless. But today they are telling details of everything that is of interest for investigators.

- Mr Roizman and fund Gorod bez narkotikov are very keen on the case. Don’t you feel any pressure from this organization?

- I can see no pressure in this case. There are a lot of media publications and this makes the case celebrated. There are other problems, but we’ll manage them. There was some pressure in the first case where the woman’s body was exhumed. They put too much importance to the operation, provoked too much excitement and even set an alarm on the grave… There was too much emotion around it, details came to senior officials in the Investigative Committee and I had to write a report that everything was within the law… Anyway, I can assure you that any case we are investigating will be solved and the guilty once will be deservingly punished, as the ultimate aim of our work is to ensure punishment.