Source The editor-in-chief of the Adskiye Babki telegram channel stated this at a meeting of the Moscow City Court, which considered the legality of extending her arrest. The figurant believes that commercial bribery took place on the part of the victim. The Moscow City Court refused to transfer under house arrest the editor-in-chief of the Hellish Babki telegram channel, Alexander Bayazitova, who is involved in the case of extorting 1.2 million rubles from the top manager of Promsvyazbank, Alexander Ushakov. The defendant herself claimed that she had nothing to do with this, and the investigation violated her rights by refusing to call not only relatives, but also lawyers, and also not accepting a counter-application to initiate proceedings against the victim.
Last , according to the journalist, he committed commercial bribery (Article 204 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) of one of the defendants in the case – Inna Churilova, who was recently transferred under house arrest by the Kuzminsky Court of the capital.
At the same time, on November 3, the same court left Alexandra Bayazitova in a pre-trial detention center for another two months – until January 7, 2023. The journalist approached the appeal against the decision of the district instance in detail, admitting that she “tried” when writing additions to the appeal even more than when she defended her diploma at Moscow State University.
Bayazitova also lamented that the victim (the court date of the appeal hearing) did not appear at the trial. “I'm worried about him, he suffered. I want to at least see him – I have never seen him, never heard him, ”the arrested woman said.
According to the investigation, in May 2022, information about the conviction of Promsvyazbank (PSB) Senior Vice President Alexander Ushakov was published on the Hellish Grandmas telegram channel, hosted by Life.ru journalist Alexandra Bayazitova. For taking notes and installing a monthly block in his name, the banker, through his assistant, paid the channel administrator, PR specialist Inna Churilova, 420 thousand rubles, which she shared with the author of the notes, Bayazitova. It was reported that they also offered him 1 million 200 thousand rubles to pay for a quarterly block for placing negative publications about him. This amount was named taking into account the “interests” of media technologist and telegram channel admin Olga Arkharova, who was involved in the negotiations. Ushakov wrote a statement to law enforcement agencies. On August 10, the Kuzminsky Court of the capital arrested Alexandra Bayazitova, Olga Arkharova and Inna Churilov. All three were charged with extortion committed by a group of persons by prior agreement in order to obtain property on an especially large scale (paragraph “b” of part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – up to 15 years in prison).
Inna Churilova almost immediately pleaded guilty, concluding a pre-trial cooperation agreement with the investigation, after which on November 2, the Kuzminsky Court of Moscow transferred her to house arrest. Arkharova and Bayazitova, the court extended the term of detention for another two months. The day before, the Moscow City Court found the decision against Arkharova legal. According to TASS, she partially admitted her guilt.
Prison slang and the suggestion to “move over”
At a meeting in the Moscow City Court, Alexandra Bayazitova asked to cancel the decision of the district court. She claimed that the case against her was falsified, and when extending her arrest, the court committed a number of violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In particular, she was not only not allowed to speak in the debate and remarks, but was not even allowed to say the last word.
“The court of first instance created the semblance of justice and the semblance of a session without examining the materials provided by the investigator at all. When I got acquainted with them, I realized that they have obvious signs of fabrication,” the journalist said.
She urged the court to take a critical look at the statement of the victim, noting that in the statement of Ushakov, who asked to prosecute “persons unknown to him”, there are signs of a “knowingly false denunciation.” She called the banker “an unfortunate terpilka from Promsvyazbank”, however, apologizing for this and noting that she had picked up prison slang, as she “sits with criminals.” Bayazitova noted that she had never communicated with Ushakov, and he himself admitted that he was in contact with only Inna Churilova. “He writes that they extorted money from him, although he himself came, that is, he wrote, offered her money,” Bayazitova emphasized.
She complained that since August she has been trying to get the investigator to consider her official statement about the commission of a crime by the senior vice-president of the PSB, Alexander Ushakov. According to Bayazitova, there was commercial bribery (Article 204 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) against Churilova on his part. were published in the judicial system of the Russian Federation – by the judicial department at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. “It’s not me, but the judicial system of the Russian Federation, it turns out, is spreading discrediting information about him. I'm ready to move. Let someone from the judicial department sit next to me,” Bayazitova suggested.
She said that in her note she wrote that Ushakov was convicted under three articles of the Criminal Code for having “ruined a private bank” at one time. Now he works in a state bank. According to her, the top manager of PSB tried to remove this information “by any means” from the Internet in order to “hide” it from the Central Bank and Promsvyazbank's shareholder, the Russian government.
“I have nothing against the victim, but it seems a little strange that a person who ruined a private bank for 20 billion rubles now actually manages the military budget of Russia, since all defense money, including for the NVO, goes through Promsvyazbank,” Bayazitova noted. . – I'm not talking about the fact that Ushakov is a man and what honor and dignity can he have if he put three women in prison?
Bayazitova added that “if the fabricated documents are removed from the case,” then the testimony of one Churilova, who allegedly pointed to her as an accomplice in the crime, will remain.
According to Bayazitova, the latter slandered her, and the court did not take into account the data about her personality. Churilova, according to Bayazitova, admitted during her first interrogation that she was fired from the Progress advertising agency in 2018 for kickbacks and bribes, “virtually with a wolf ticket.”
“I, unlike her, have an impeccable reputation,” Bayazitova said. “Therefore, the court should have been doubly critical of her testimony.” She called on the Moscow City Court to “restore justice” and release her from custody, at least placing her under house arrest. that she was fired from the Progress agency, and only said that she had “quarreled” with her leader Solopov D.A. on the basis of her accusations of “bribes and kickbacks in the conduct of labor activities”, after which she went to work for Bayazitova to “promote” her channel “Hell's grandmother”.
Bayazitova's lawyers Maksim Pashkov and Aleksey Yanyushkin noted that in four months the investigator had interrogated only two witnesses and examined mobile phones. “Overworked. I believe that this is unacceptably small and, unfortunately, the prosecutor’s office is improperly controlling the investigation,” Maxim Pashkov said. He asked the court to make the “fairy tale come true” by presenting Bayazitova with house arrest for the New Year.
The defender also added that the investigator is exerting psychological pressure on the accused, refusing to allow her to visit relatives. Bayazitova herself confirmed this, saying that the investigator does not even allow her to call, not only to relatives, but even to lawyers, who are difficult to meet while sitting in a pre-trial detention center. “He [the investigator] knows that the electronic queue in SIZO No. 6 is scheduled until February, and he doesn’t even let his mother call. December 11 was her birthday, for the first time in 30 years I didn’t wish her a happy birthday, I didn’t send a bouquet of flowers, ”the figure complained.
In turn, the representative of the prosecutor's office considered the decision of the district court lawful and motivated and requested that it be left in force. She noted that the grounds on which a preventive measure was chosen for Bayazitova had not changed and had not disappeared. “Bayazitova is accused of a deliberate, especially serious crime, for which more than three years of imprisonment are provided,” the prosecutor said, emphasizing that only being in a pre-trial detention center can “fully guarantee Bayazitova’s appearance before the investigation.”
Trying to set a precedent?
As a result, after spending 15 minutes in the deliberation room, judge Svetlana Ustinova left Bayazitova in custody, only slightly correcting the judicial act. In it, she set the term for the arrest of the journalist not until January 7, but until January 6, 2023.
Bayazitova's defenders told Business FM that they intend to appeal the decision to the cassation. According to Maxim Pashkov, the investigating authorities are trying to create a precedent using the Bayazitova case as an example. “Extortion is a well-established structure, when there is a requirement to transfer someone else's property under the threat of disseminating defamatory information. In this case, the investigating authorities are trying to create a precedent when it is no longer necessary to put forward demands. A person comes, asks himself to remove the previously posted information for money, people agree, and this can be considered extortion, ”Pashkov commented on the case. He claims that his client was only the author of a note about Ushakov and did not participate in any negotiations with him. The lawyer also insists that Bayazitova's information was “true”. “Moreover, in 2019, there was a decision by the Dorogomilovsky Court of Moscow, when Ushakov tried to remove information [about his criminal record] from the Internet so that Google would not give it out in the search, but the court refused him, indicating that this information is of a socially significant nature. , he continues to work in the banking sector, and the people should know their heroes. The decision has been published, and anyone can familiarize themselves with it, ”said the defender.
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