Furgal did not wait for mercy from the jury

The jury considered proven the guilt of the ex-governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, Sergei Furgal, in organizing contract killings and attempted murder committed on the territory of Khabarovsk and the Amur Region in 2004-2005. They decided that the politician did not deserve leniency. This is reported by the correspondent of Business FM. They also found the defendant Andrey Karepov guilty of preparing these crimes, and Marat Kadyrov and Andrey Paley guilty of carrying them out. At the same time, Karepov deserved the indulgence of the jury.

Before the jury retired to the deliberation room at 4:20 p.m., the defense argued for 2.5 hours with Judge Gennady Tsoi about the wording of 35 questions. The main ones were four: is it proven that the crime was committed, is it proven that the defendants committed it, are they guilty or not, and do they deserve convergence? Lawyers were worried that they were too “cumbersome” and would be incomprehensible to the jury, and the judge simply lost one question. As a result, the list was reduced to 34 questions concerning three episodes of the case.

It took the panel four hours to reach a verdict. It happened about half past nine in the evening. When the foreman of the jury finished reading the verdict, Furgal began to protest. “Sum gone, or what?!” – so he commented on the decision of the jury. A discussion of the legal implications of the verdict, during which prosecutors will ask for time limits for the defendants, will take place on February 6.

The case is being heard by the Lyubertsy City Court of the Moscow Region. The process is an exit process and takes place in the building of the Moscow Regional Court.

Three episodes

The assassination attempt on businessman Alexander Smolsky took place at eight in the morning on July 28, 2004 in the village of Progress, Amur Region. Two grenades were thrown towards the businessman’s garage. However, he escaped with only abrasions and bruises, because before the first thrown grenade he managed to go into the garage, and the second did not explode. Thus, Furgal, together with his business partner Nikolai Mistryukov (he pleaded guilty and entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement), according to the investigation, tried to force a competitor to reduce the purchase prices for scrap metal.

Khabarovsk entrepreneur Yevgeny Zorya was shot by a killer from a pistol exactly three months later, on October 28, 2004, at 23:30 on Seryshev Street not far from his house. He didn’t survive. The reason for the massacre, according to the prosecution, was the conflict over the railway tracks to the main production building of the concrete products plant No. 3 in Khabarovsk, with the help of which the Mif-Khabarovsk company (Sergei Furgal was the general director) shipped scrap metal from the warehouse. Zorya sued Furgal’s company about the ownership of these routes and was close to victory.

The murder of Oleg Bulatov, an employee of Mifa-Khabarovsk, took place at about seven o’clock in the evening on January 31, 2005, at the gate of his house on Dekabristov Street in Khabarovsk. He was shot with a pistol. Leaving, the killer threw a grenade towards the victim’s house. According to the prosecution, Furgal was aware that Bulatov knew about his involvement with Mistryukov in the murder of Zorya, so he was removed, fearing that he would report this to law enforcement agencies.

The investigation believes that Sergei Furgal, together with Nikolai Mistryukov, co-owner of the Mif-Khabarovsk company, was the customer of all three crimes, paying 1 million rubles for each. They attracted Andrey Karepov to the implementation of the plan, and he – Marat Kadyrov and Andrey Paley, who were part of one of the brigades of the Timofeev organized criminal group. Thus, the prosecution considers Furgal the customer of the crimes, Karepov the organizer, and Kadyrov and Paley the perpetrators. Another defendant in the case, the founder of the gang, crime boss Mikhail Timofeev, nicknamed Timokha, was charged with organizing massacres in absentia at the final stage of the investigation. He is wanted.

Mistryukov testified in court as a prosecution witness, and the now former police officer Vladimir Pershin, who for many years “protected” the Mif-Khabarovsk company on behalf of the police, also testified against Furgal.

Furgal, Kadyrov, Karepov and Paley, depending on their role, are charged with attempted murder (part 3 of article 30, part 2 of article 105) and murder (part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In addition, Furgal and Karepov are accused of illegal arms trafficking (part 3 of article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Paley and Kadyrov (unlike Furgal and Karepov) agreed to dismiss the case under this article (the first was still in the course of the investigation, and the second at the beginning of the process) due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Therefore, the jury also found Furgal and Karepov guilty of illegal trafficking in weapons – grenades and pistols, which were used for assassination attempts.

Those who did not admit guilt

During the consideration of the case, which began on May 11, 2022, none of the defendants pleaded guilty. They claimed that they did not know each other before their arrest. Karepov, Kadyrov and Paley have been in jail since November 2019, and Furgal since July 2020. At the time of his arrest, the latter served as governor of the Khabarovsk Territory. His detention caused mass protests by residents of the Far East.

Furgal connects his criminal prosecution with the economic conflict at the Amurstal plant, as a result of which Nikolai Mistryukov, the “litigator,” sold his 25 percent stake for 350 million rubles during the investigation. And a similar share of Furgal’s ex-wife Larisa Starodubova (the investigation considers the divorce fictitious) subsequently became close to zero.

Throughout the process, the defense claimed that they did not see evidence of the guilt of the defendants, and asked them to be acquitted. Thus, the defense of Marat Kadyrov stated that the defendant had an alibi. He claimed that he could not throw grenades at Smolsky in the Amur Region, as at that time he was on probation in another case and he was forbidden to leave his place of residence.

The defense of Andrei Karepov insisted that, as an assistant to State Duma deputy Igor Lebedev (son of Vladimir Zhirinovsky), he helped Furgal in his political career: he organized his election campaigns and ensured that Furgal subsequently headed the regional branch of the Liberal Democratic Party in Khabarovsk, and then became a deputy of the regional, and later – the State Duma. Karepov denied any connection with crime, saying that he had known Mikhail Timofeev since his military service.

“Even the main witness for the prosecution, Nikolai Mistryukov, confirmed in the courtroom that he did not pass any information about future victims (for example, photographs or data of their cars) to Karepov while preparing the crimes,” Artem Raevsky, who defended Karepov, told Business FM.

As for Andrei Paley, he assured that he did not know how to handle military weapons and did not even serve in the army. “But, according to the version and the prosecution, either athletes or former employees of law enforcement agencies who had been dealing with weapons all their lives worked for Timofeev,” lawyer Artem Sarbashev commented on the case to Business FM. According to him, Mikhail Timofeev, whom the investigation considers the leader of the organized criminal group, had a completely legal business: a private security company, a gym, restaurants and even a confectionery. “Paley, whose photo was shown by prosecutors, was standing at the gate of the base, which was guarded by employees of his private security company,” the lawyer said.

He added that, according to the prosecution, during the attack on Zorya, the victim, trying to snatch the weapon, was able to bend Paley’s hand with a pistol, he fired, wounding the killer in the right forearm. “We checked this hand in detail and found out that Paley was wounded not by a bullet, but by a shot, and at a completely different time of the year – in the summer. This is also confirmed by the photographs seized from him in the case, in which Paley was in summer clothes with a band-aid in this place. He himself says that he suffered by accident, shooting at bottles from a gun outside the city, ”said the defender.

Furgal himself, in the debate of the parties, called on the jurors to deliver an impartial verdict, assuring that he had nothing to do with the alleged crimes. The politician argued that it was very important for him to “wash his name”. In the last word, he said that he could not agree that he “should be destroyed.” In turn, prosecutors Alexander Korobeinikov and Anton Shcherbakov believe that the guilt of the defendants has been proven.

Leaving the court, the lawyers announced that they intended to appeal against the verdict, which will be handed down after the court sets the terms for the defendants. This will happen next week.