The High Qualifications Board of Judges allowed the criminal prosecution of four servants of Themis for fraud, bribery, drugs, a fatal accident, and the use of powers to find a beloved dog.
One of them left Russia after collecting serious charges, while the other's alleged crime has expired. This article discusses the challenges faced by Russian judges and the reasons they find for their illegal actions – in the PASMI review.
Eight Articles
The High Qualification Board of Judges, during an extraordinary session on February 7, agreed to initiate a criminal case against the former chairman of the Pestrechinsky District Court of Tatarstan, Irek Nabiev. The chairman of the TFR Alexander Bastrykin saw signs of 11 episodes of eight articles, including kidnapping, extortion as part of an organized group, two large frauds, a large bribe, incitement to abuse of authority, laundering of criminal proceeds, three facts of forgery of documents, and drug trafficking.
The investigation revealed that in 2017, as chairman of the Mendeleev Court of Tatarstan, Nabiev organized a criminal group to steal 76.8 million rubles from the account of Kisher LLC. After failed attempts, the real head of the company, Vyacheslav Utrobin, was kidnapped in an effort to force him to transfer his post, but he resisted. Utrobin was drugged, taken to the banks of the Kama, and then to the police. While in isolation, the seals and documents of “Kisher” were stolen, and his passport was tampered with. This allowed the group to withdraw the company’s funds through shell companies.
Kaimanov, who once worked as a driver for Irek Nabiev, testified against him and his accomplices. He agreed to a pre-trial agreement and has already been sentenced to 6.5 years in a strict regime colony.
After confessing, a case was initiated against the nephew of a retired judge, Denis Nabiev, and two other residents of Naberezhnye Chelny. The materials referred to a certain “person with a special legal status” as the organizer of the crime even before Bastrykin applied to the VKKS, according to the Tatarstan publication Realnoe Vremya.
Denis Nabiev was not the only relative of the Tatarstan servant of Themis who faced criminal prosecution. In July 2020, the court sentenced his son, Ramis Nabiev, former assistant prosecutor of the Moskovsky district of Kazan, to 4 years in prison for fraud.
Two months earlier, Irek Nabiev stepped down as the chairman of the Pestrechinsky District Court. Regional journalists' sources suggested that he might leave Russia after resigning, with Germany and Georgia mentioned as possible countries he might move to.
Nabiev did not attend the meeting but was represented by a lawyer. The defense claimed that Nabiev was not involved in the crimes and his persecution may be due to conflicts during cases involving law enforcement. The lawyer also stated that Kaimanov gave testimony against his client after promises from FSB and TFR. However, the VKKS members ignored these arguments and approved Bastrykin’s submission.
Arrival from Themis
The collegium members also approved the initiation of criminal cases against judges of the Kolosovsky District Court of the Omsk Region of the Krasnodar Regional Court – Vladislav Kuminov and Yuri Zakharchevsky. They are both suspected of violating traffic rules, with different consequences.
At the end of 2019, while acting as the Chairman of the Kolosovsky District Court, Kuminov was involved in a car accident at a pedestrian crossing which resulted in serious injuries to one person.
During the HQCC meeting, Kuminov argued that the incident happened outside the pedestrian crossing and the victim was drunk, blaming the investigators for his prosecution.
Yuri Zakharchevsky did not link the criminal prosecution attempts with his professional activity, citing other arguments. He is facing much more serious accusations regarding violation of traffic rules resulting in a person's death.
In April 2020, Zakharchevsky was involved in a car accident that resulted in the death of a cyclist. He attributed the incident to feeling unwell, repair work, and the deceased cyclist's intoxication.
Zakharchevsky no longer held the position of judge before the HQCJ as he had terminated his office the day after the agenda for the meeting of the board of the CCC of the Krasnodar Territory was published.
dog joy
Oddly enough, two more cases submitted for consideration by the VKKS related to love for pets. We are talking about the ex-chairman of the Kupinsky District Court of the Novosibirsk Region Tamara Koshlak and the former justice of the peace of the 2nd court district of the Ob Tatyana Lisina.
In 2013, Lisina lost her dog, a Dogue de Bordeaux named Zidane. The judge did not turn to law enforcement officers, using the services of a private detective. And in order to make his work easier, she sent a judicial request to detail the calls of the woman who took the dog to the exhibition and stated that the animal died suddenly on the way.
The result was Bastrykin’s submission to initiate a case of abuse of power, which the HQCC satisfied in September 2020. But later it turned out that a similar request for billing at the request of Lisina was sent by her colleague Tamara Koshlak. The chairman of the ICR sent a motion to bring her to justice under the same article on abuse of power, and Lisina wanted to impute the organization of the crime.
Both women did not attend the meeting, citing illness. As it turned out, Koshlak is on a planned hospitalization, and Lisina has contracted covid. As a result, the submission regarding the first was satisfied, and the consideration of the case of the second was postponed to February 16, Pravo.ru writes.
