Moscow City Court canceled absentee arrest former deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the Murmansk region and head of the Novik industrial group Alexey Lyashchenko. It is reported by Kommersant.
It is noted that the appellate instance found in the decision of the Basmanny District Court “significant” and “irremovable” violations of both the rights of the participants in the process and the judicial procedure.
Alexei Lyashchenko’s lawyers insisted on the illegality and groundlessness of the arrest in absentia. In particular, the defenders pointed to the unsubstantiated arguments of the Investigative Committee, which the Basmanny District Court accepted, actually taking their word for it. This is a violation of article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure “Detention”.
In addition, Aleksey Lyashchenko’s lawyers calculated that the qualification of the actions of the head “Novika” as non-payment of wages, which entailed grave consequences, is not supported by the materials of the case and was artificial. Such a qualification transferred the actions of Alexei Lyashchenko to the category of crimes of medium gravity, which was also used by the investigation in court as an argument to justify the arrest. According to the defenders, the court did not verify the involvement of the ex-deputy in the crime imputed to him and did not give an objective assessment of the validity of the charges against him.
Aleksey Lyashchenko himself is in the United Arab Emirates. One of the main arguments of the defense was the absence in the UAE Criminal Code of an article related to non-payment of wages to its employees. Therefore, putting the former State Duma deputy on the international wanted list was pointless, since the Emirates will not arrest and extradite him.
Kommersant, 10/11/2022, “The law is not prescribed for the ex-deputy in the UAE”: But one of the main arguments for the defense was the absence in the Criminal Code of the UAE, where the ex-deputy is now, of an article related to non-payment of salaries to his employees. In this regard, the lawyers concluded that putting Mr. Lyashchenko on the international wanted list on January 14 of this year under the article imputed to him is meaningless, since his detention in the Emirates and extradition from this country to Russia are impossible. — Inset K.ru
The reasons for canceling the arrest in absentia were also the lack of proper notification of Aleksey Lyashchenko about the conduct of investigative actions with him, which is confirmed by the case materials, and the violation of the special procedure for initiating such cases and proceedings on them, since Aleksey Lyashchenko was at that time an acting deputy of the State Duma .
Vedomosti, 01/25/2022, “Former State Duma deputy Alexei Lyashchenko appealed against his arrest in absentia”: Alexander Gukanov, managing partner of the Prombusinessconsulting law firm, representing the interests of Lyashchenko, told Vedomosti about filing a complaint against the decision of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow. He confirmed that the case initiated under Part 3 of Art. 145.1 of the Criminal Code (non-payment of wages, which entailed grave consequences), is associated with the non-payment of at least 176 million rubles to Novik employees. […]
The decision to arrest him in absentia was appealed, since the defense considers the procedure for initiating a case against Lyashchenko to be violated. The initiation of a case against “unidentified persons from among the management of OAO IG Novik” was possible only if “at the time of initiation of the case, the status of the accused Lyashchenko was not known to the investigation authorities”, but at that time he was still a deputy of the State Duma of the VII convocation, explains Gukanov. […]
The powers of the deputies of this convocation officially ended on October 12, 2021. The case of non-payment of wages was initiated back in 2016, but Lyashchenko began to be accused of it only in December 2021, after the expiration of his deputy powers. — Inset K.ru
The appellate instance listened to the views of the parties and came to the conclusion that the Basmanny Court committed significant violations of the criminal procedure law, which led both to the deprivation or restriction of the guaranteed rights of participants in criminal proceedings, and to non-compliance with the procedure of legal proceedings.
Since the Moscow City Court considered the above violations to be irremediable within its competence, it was decided to return the case materials to the district court for a new trial, but in a different composition of the court. The Investigative Committee has not yet begun to petition for the arrest in absentia of Alexei Lyashchenko.
Recall that Alexei Lyashchenko’s company “Novik” was engaged in maintenance, repair, restoration of the technical readiness of the main and auxiliary mechanisms, systems and pipelines of surface ships, submarines of the Navy and other sea and river vessels, as well as facilities subordinate to Rostekhnadzor. The industrial group included a number of production and technical bases, including the Northern base in Murmansk. In 2019, Novik Industrial Group OJSC began bankruptcy proceedings. According to investigators, the former State Duma deputy from the Murmansk region did not pay more than 200 million rubles to his employees.
