On March 23, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow continued to consider the case of "billionaire" Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko. According to the investigation, he received billions in bribes for patronage from the largest contractors of Russian Railways. In January 2022, the court began a detailed examination of the evidence of Zakharchenko's defenders and his alleged bribe givers. Among these evidences, numerous inconsistencies in the documents of the investigation and the testimony of his witnesses should be noted (The telegram channel of the Cheka-OGPU wrote in detail about this), which were analyzed in detail by the defenders. The defense also presented its own witnesses, from whose testimony it followed that in the notorious "Platform" (or eb2), where, according to the investigation, illegal financial transactions against Zakharchenko were reflected, there is no direct evidence fixing the facts of the transfer and even the passage of money. In addition, from numerous testimonies, it turned out that people who, according to the investigation, were closely related to each other, in fact, barely knew each other. The “second case of Zakharchenko” has been considered in the Presnensky Court since January 2021, and its participants expect that the verdict could be handed down by the May holidays. Details in the report of the correspondent of the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info.
The meeting, which began with an hour and a half delay, was not held in the hall that had already become familiar to the participants in the process, but was moved to another, more spacious room: the state prosecutor Milana Digaeva decided to present the testimony of Yevgeny Selyakov (a good friend of Zakharchenko, Viktor Belevtsov and Vasily Kritinin, who are on dock in the present case). Selyakov spoke for a long time about the details of the personal lives of his acquaintances (however, they were of little relevance to the case), all the time emphasizing that the relationship between them was “friendly”, and “I did not have to carry out any orders from them.” A couple of times in the testimony of Selyakov, the names of Motorin and Stankevich surfaced: according to him, he heard about them from one of his comrades. Once he happened to cross paths with Markelov: Selyakov, who was engaged in construction, offered him his services as a contractor, "however, he received a negative answer: we did not meet again."
The meeting was then followed by a break. It was connected with the fact that one of the defendants in the case, the ex-co-owner of the 1520 Group of Companies, Valery Markelov, feels worse every day, which is noticeable even in his appearance: over the past three months he has lost a lot of weight and is obviously weakened. During the meeting, his lawyer asked the judge to give an opportunity to examine the defendant to the doctors of a private ambulance right in the courthouse. The court gave permission for this, provided that an ordinary ambulance was also involved, but the convoy allowed only state doctors to Markelov, referring to the instructions.
After a short break, during which Zakharchenko amused the audience with a story that numerous admirers write letters to him and even propose marriage (a certain Ms. Chichulina, who, as it turned out, wrote about Zakharchenko even to judge Sergei Artemov, was especially persistent), the defense invited Alexey Savitsky (Associate Professor of Moscow State Law Academy, member of the Department of Forensic Examinations). Based on the results of studying the documents of the case (primarily “Platka”), the expert showed that they clearly lack details and documents that would unambiguously prove the fact that money was spent in favor of Zakharchenko or other persons, therefore it cannot be argued that the movement of funds in principle took place . “Even taking into account the fact that we are talking about rough accounting, not a single fact of posting can be established, and the very conclusion of a specialist who studied the database has no scientific or even economic justification,” Savitsky summed up. Then his conclusions were illustrated with various examples from The Playground. Based on this speech, lawyer Zakharchenko asked the judge for a new examination of the financial calculations given in the case (and on the "Platform"). Judge Artemov did not make a decision right away, since the state prosecution represented by Milana Digaeva was not ready for such a turn, promising to express her attitude to the petition next time.
At the end of the five-hour session, the court, to everyone's satisfaction, began interrogating Zakharchenko, whose speech during the entire process was distinguished by figurativeness, not always appropriate length and numerous irrelevant reflections that caused a smile and stable interest of those present. The ex-colonel spoke about his friendship with Avsholum Yunaev (the head of Gazprom Avtomatizatsiya, which, according to the prosecution, paid for Zakharchenko’s vacation in Sochi), saying that he did not receive any bribes from him, did not discuss work issues, and money for a ticket to Sochi during the New Year holidays 2015-2016 returned. In his speech, Zakharchenko called the bankers Chuvilin and Gorbuntsov “duty applicants” and “scammers that cause a negative reaction in any normal person”, suggesting that the court disregard their testimony as mosh ennicheskimi. Markelov, Stankevich and Motorin Zakharchenko called "normal men with whom normal, but not close and not business relations have developed." I, given my opportunities and the industries with which I was professionally connected, simply could not be of interest to these people from a business point of view. According to him, Zakharchenko learned about the existence of the eb2 base only from the case materials, “and the stupid nicknames attributed to me like Cherry or Zakhar the Cunning generally offend me.”
The next hearing was scheduled for April 6. VChK-OGPU will follow the course of events.
To be continued...
Denis Zhirnov
Source: www.rucriminal.info
