The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has completed the investigation of the criminal case against the former Deputy Head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Andrei Gurovich, who is charged with exceeding his official powers during the construction of an anti-covid hospital in the Murmansk region. The medical institution, which did not accept a single patient due to a discrepancy between the climatic conditions of the region and design characteristics, was dismantled as quickly as it was built, and the medical equipment was distributed to other hospitals. Soon the accused, who was recently left in a pre-trial detention center for another month, should begin to familiarize himself with the materials collected by the investigation.
The person involved in the criminal case under paragraph “c” of Part 3 of Art. 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of power, entailing grave consequences), 49-year-old Andrei Gurovich became on July 11, 2022. The decision of the investigator for especially important cases of the second investigative department for investigating crimes against state power and in the economic sphere of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation states that in the midst of a pandemic, in April 2020, the governor of the Murmansk region, Andrey Chibis, asked the government to deploy on the territory of the region, a field hospital for the treatment of those infected with coronavirus. On behalf of President Vladimir Putin, the government and the Ministry of Emergency Situations were to build a 700-bed hospital in the village of Belokamenka, Kola District, Murmansk Region.
969 million rubles were allocated for the construction and equipment of the facility.
Mr. Gurovich was appointed project curator from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and the government of the Murmansk region – its administrator. In May-June 2020, General Contractor-Transstroy LLC, whose actions, according to the investigation, should have been controlled by the deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, built a hospital, but in the village of Murmashi – 50 km from the originally designated place.
According to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, knowing that the then head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Yevgeny Zinichev on June 9–10, 2020 had to report on the implementation of the order to the government and the president, and “wishing to embellish the actual state of affairs”, Andrei Gurovich informed his immediate supervisor “knowingly unreliable information on the readiness of the prefabricated hospital to receive patients. However, the facility, according to investigators, could not then be used to provide medical care, since the acts of acceptance of work were not signed and the conclusion of the regional department of Rospotrebnadzor on the use of the hospital was not received.
In turn, Minister Zinichev reported on the readiness of the medical institution above, and his deputy in August 2020 organized payment for the work performed, the acceptance certificate of which was signed only in November 2020. However, already on November 30 of the same year, the government of the Murmansk region stopped the operation of the hospital, having come to the conclusion that it did not meet the climatic conditions of the region and design characteristics.
On December 24, 2020, General Contractor-Transstroy LLC dismantled a facility that did not accept a single patient at a cost of 323,645,268 rubles. 78 kop. This amount was the amount of damages in the case.
Equipment purchased for 1.7 billion rubles was distributed to other hospitals.
As a result, Andrei Gurovich, who was dismissed from the Ministry of Emergency Situations in May 2022, was charged with the lack of control over the targeted and efficient use of budget funds, which led to their misuse.
The defendant himself, whom the Basmanny District Court of the capital sent to a pre-trial detention center at the request of the investigation, does not admit his guilt. “Throughout the entire investigation, it is not the investigation that proves my guilt, but I and my defenders are trying to prove my innocence,” the former deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations said in court during the next extension of the arrest.
From his further speech it followed that after the construction of the hospital, the object was twice checked by the prosecutor’s office of the Murmansk region, but no violations were found. Andrey Gurovich argued, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Federal Treasury subsequently came to similar conclusions, to which the Ministry of Emergency Situations itself turned with a request to check the efficiency of spending budget funds.
“During the preliminary investigation, together with the defense, we initiated several more examinations, but the investigation refused to attach them to the case file. This is obviously explained by the fact that their results do not fit into the plot lined up by the prosecution. For example, in the expert opinion of the Ministry of Justice, it was concluded that “the Ministry of Emergency Situations fully complied with the order of the President of the Russian Federation and the order of the Government of the Russian Federation.” The conclusions refuting the accusation and confirming my lack of any ability to control and influence the quality of the construction of the indicated field hospital and the procedure for settlements with the contractor are reflected in the economic expertise, ”Andrey Gurovich noted in court.
According to the defense of the defendant, the events appearing in the case took place during the period of the emergency and required quick and extraordinary solutions, and the task of preventing the spread of the pandemic was solved. “The readiness of the hospital to receive patients was reported directly to the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Zinichev directly by the leadership of the Ministry of Construction of the Murmansk Region, and not at all by Gurovich. The investigation, apparently, did not consider it necessary to figure out what was included in the official powers of my client and what specific powers he allegedly exceeded. The presence of damage to the regional Ministry of Construction, recognized by the investigation as the victim, is not confirmed by anything and, perhaps, was even news for the ministry itself, ”summed up the lawyer of the accused Andrei Gurovich.
