On February 15, at Pokrovskaya IK-2, during an offsite session of the Lefortovsky District Court of Moscow, the trial of the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK * , recognized as an extremist organization and banned in Russia) Alexey Navalny. This time he is charged with fraud and contempt of court.
Cover War
A year ago, the trial to replace opposition blogger Alexei Navalny with a suspended sentence for a real one became quite a high-profile event: then the Simonovsky court, where the case was heard, was was surrounded by several police cordons, and hundreds of journalists and even representatives of foreign embassies tried to get to the meeting. Today, press attention to the court is also quite high (more than 100 accredited journalists from 38 media), but the event is still lost in the context of the crisis around the court. #39;Ukrainian. He is so lost that Navalny associates, including Leonid Volkov placed on the interstate wanted list, have seriously accused Russian authorities of “engineering” this very crisis to divert the ;public attention of the trial of the founder of FBK*.
On Tuesday, the court considered two new cases which were merged into one. First, a fraud case that was filed at the end of 2020. The commission of inquiry estimates that Navalny spent 356 million rubles for personal purposes, collected in the form of donations for FBK* activities. Second, a contempt of court case. It was initiated in May 2021 after Navalny's trial for defamation of a veteran. The investigation believes that the founder of FBK* insulted the judge and other participants in the proceedings.
Navalny's comrades-in-arms said the visitation session at the secure facility was arranged to complicate access to the accused's family and the press. In fact, all journalists received accreditation (there was not a single challenge), as well as Navalny's wife, Yulia.
“Let's be like happy friends”
Navalny himself looked cheerful at the meeting. Before starting, they let his wife in to see him, with whom he had a cheerful conversation about something. Tomorrow the couple is due to have a long date (one of 4 of the year), but because of the court he was in danger. During the meeting, Navalny told Judge Margarita Kotova about it. She promised to take this into account.
In general, the judge tried to deal with the defendant in a cautious manner. For example, Kotova asked when Navalny usually had lunch. The FBK* founder replied that he usually had lunch around two o'clock. As the time indicated on the clock was exactly that, Kotova announced a lunch break.
Navalny himself, this time too, apparently decided not to escalate the situation. At the beginning of the meeting, he invited all participants to behave “like cheerful friends”. “I'm a fairly experienced defendant… I won't shout anything and I ask the court not to aggravate either”, — he stated. And he only complained that he was not allowed to change into ordinary clothes: jeans and a T-shirt. The judge replied that there was nothing to do: a special diet, even his phone was taken away from him.
Above all, according to him, Navalny was worried about the press, who followed the events in court from a small room where they had installed a screen with a live broadcast. For example, journalists complain that a strong echo prevents them from following what is happening. Kotova replied that they are fixing the problem. Indeed, the sound quickly became clearer.
How was the meeting?
The rest of the process was fairly routine. The defense raised several objections. For example, against the visitation court. Navalny himself said his cases were seen as “exotic” circumstances, knowing that he is on trial in the midst of a colony. Say, the process of the Moscow court in the settlement of Vladimir — an unprecedented case.
In fact, offsite meetings — a fairly common thing. According to official data from the Federal Penitentiary Service, from January 1, 2019 to January 1, 2022, 8,947 field meetings were held involving 9,057 people. Thus, including criminal cases for crimes committed before conviction (81 hearings against 63 people). And that is exactly the case with Navalny.
Lawyers Andrey Kobzev and Olga Mikhailova protested that their phones and computers were confiscated, on which materials from the case were stored. To this, the judge replied that the material was also confiscated from the prosecution, so that everyone is on an equal footing.
The defense also requested that the case be sent back to the prosecution on the grounds of having committed a fraud in two ways mentioned in the indictment at the same time — both by deception and breach of trust — supposedly impossible. The prosecution objected that there were no obstacles to the consideration of the case, and the disagreement with the qualifications and the charges brought did not indicate the impossibility of the procedure. The judge agreed with the prosecution's arguments.
Custom fraud
After dinner, the prosecution received the floor. She claims that Navalny and his accomplices (including Volkov, mentioned above) used the FBK* to steal money and dispose of donations for personal gain through “fraud and breach of trust”. This happened in particular during the campaign for the presidential elections in Russia in 2018. “Navalny, Volkov and Rubanov knew for sure that he had no right to be elected to the presidency because he had been sentenced to prison and had an unexpurgated conviction”, — said the prosecutor.
By law, collection must be through a registered candidate's election fund, and if registration is denied, the candidate must return the donations. Navalny was denied registration by the CEC due to an outstanding conviction for a serious crime. “Nevertheless, Navalny's criminal group planned, through deception and abuse, to convince an unlimited circle of people of the need to appoint Navalny, as well as fund his election campaign and activities,” — said the accuser. Several victims were also presented. Some of them donated one million rubles to FBK*.
Next, the prosecution read out a list of Navalny's expenses. 100,000 rubles for sports clubs: two golf clubs, a fitness club in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Several expenditures in clothing stores in different years: 50,000, 220,000, 150,000. 69,000 rubles went to bars and cafes in Moscow, Tomsk, Khabarovsk and Novosibirsk, another 75 — in Moscow, France and Lithuania.
Then the prosecutor moved on to contempt of court charges. During a public hearing on the case of insulting a veteran, Navalny “humiliated the honor and dignity of the participants in the trial”. The prosecutor recalled that the accused offered the judge “to stop the disgrace”, called her an “Obersturmbannführer”, a “parrot”, other participants in court — “vile toad”, “gramophone” etc.
Basically, Navalny said he had 300,000 donors, and of those, “only four wrote statements.” And yet, they say, it has not been proven that “at least a penny came to me, which I transferred for my needs.” Lawyers for the accused have insisted that his persecution was political in nature.
Whether or not these objections will convince the judge will likely be known very soon. It has been decided that the next hearing in the case will be held on February 21. Obviously, this was done taking into account the request of the accused to take into account that on February 16 he began a three-day meeting with his wife.
*Recognized as an extremist organization and banned in Russia