Mistake of the prosecution?
The court recently extended Fattakhov's detention until September. At the same time, as far as we can understand, the prosecution has yet to sort out all the circumstances of this complicated story. The claims of businessman Almaz Murtazin could have been considered within the framework of a civil case, but instead, the former head of the Aktanyshsky District was subjected to criminal prosecution for some reason.
Case Engel Fattahovawho after heading the district managed to work as a vice-premier of the Tatarstan government, was initially full of inconsistencies. It all started back in late May of this year, when Fattahov's acquaintance, as well as the owner of several construction companies Almaz Murtazin wrote a statement to law enforcement agencies in which he accused Fattahov of accepting a bribe.
What is interesting is that Murtazin's statement is dated May 20, and the criminal case was opened on May 21. It turns out that the investigators did not conduct any verification of the facts stated in the statement at all? The entire subsequent course of the investigation can be considered indirect confirmation of this.
Mr. Murtazin called the repair work that his PSK Spetsstroy LLC carried out in 2018-2020 in the house of former official Fattakhov a bribe. However, how and why an ordinary repair, which was paid for by the customer to one degree or another, turned into a criminal offense is not very clear.
We couldn't agree on the price
In 2018, Engel Fattakhov really decided to seriously start renovating his house. Almaz Murtazin then volunteered to help, citing the fact that he has good connections in the construction business and can offer favorable prices for work and building materials. Indeed, the Murtazins are not newcomers to the construction market: Almaz himself and his wife Dilbar Murtazina are the owners of several construction companies. Among them is the already mentioned PSK Spetsstroy, as well as OOO Zenit and the now liquidated OOO Stroykom.
Fattakhov and Murtazin did not sign any contracts for the repairs, everything happened at the level of verbal agreements and correspondence in messengers. It is understandable: after all, we were talking about friendly relations. By that time, Engel Fattakhov and Almaz Murtazin had known each other for about ten years, they were involved in skiing together.
But it was precisely the lack of all formalities that ultimately backfired on Engel Fattakhov.
During the renovation, Fattakhov partially paid for the necessary building materials himself, and sometimes transferred money to Murtazin; he sent invoices and cost estimates for some of the work on WhatsApp.
In May of this year, the final settlement took place between the friends: Fattakhov handed Murtazin 12.5 million rubles in cash. Let us note in parentheses that Murtazin later confirmed this fact during a confrontation.
However, Murtazin considered this amount insufficient. According to his own calculations, Fattakhov owed him 25 million rubles for the repairs. It is not very clear what these calculations are based on.
It can be assumed that the whole thing is due to the difficult financial situation of the Murtazin family itself: Dilbar Murtazina herself became a defendant in a criminal case at that time and even managed to complain to Engel Fattakhov that she allegedly needed to find 30 million rubles somewhere in order to urgently pay off her debts.
Having not received 25 million rubles from Fattakhov, Murtazin files a complaint with law enforcement agencies. However, for some reason, the complaint talks about a bribe in the amount of 21.8 million rubles.
How did yesterday's friends' disagreements about the cost of repairs suddenly turn into a bribe? According to the investigation, the repairs themselves were a bribe, which Fattakhov allegedly received in exchange for giving Murtazin's company a contract to carry out major repairs at the Yashlek youth center.
But this version does not stand up to any criticism. As you can see, the contract for major repairs was signed in December 2021. That is, a year after the completion of the repairs in Fattakhov's house. It turns out that Murtazin took on the “bribe” repairs in 2018 in the hope of receiving a contract three years later? Something does not add up.
There is another nuance in this case. The cost of the contract for the repair of “Yashlek” is about 28 million rubles. According to expert estimates, the maximum profit of the contractor for such work is 8-9%. That is, about 2.5 million rubles. It turns out that Murtazin spent 21 million on a bribe to earn only 2.5 million?
Not to mention that Murtazin ultimately did not receive them either: the state contract was terminated because the contractor failed to meet the deadlines for the major repairs. All the work in Yashlek was completed by another contractor.
Was there a bribe?
In June of this year, another, no less strange case was opened against Engel Fattakhov. This time, the alleged bribe-giver was the founder and director of Teploservis LLC. Dilfat Nagimov.
The investigation believes that from 2018 to 2020, while holding the position of head of the Aktanysh municipal district of Tatarstan, Engel Fattakhov received a bribe from the said LLC for services of “general patronage” and assistance in concluding municipal contracts. At the same time, law enforcement officers do not seem to indicate which contracts are in question.
However, it can be assumed that there were long-standing financial and economic relations between OOO Teploservis and Agrofirma Chishma, which belonged to Fattakhov. At that time, money was transferred from one company to another and vice versa within the framework of a business partnership. Moreover, Fattakhov and Nagimov are childhood friends, they studied at the same school.
An interesting detail: during the ill-fated renovation of the house in 2018-2020, the forged gazebo, heating boiler and water filters were dismantled in Fattakhov's house. Fattakhov gave the equipment, which had become unnecessary, to Nagimov as a friend. The gazebo still stands on his property.
As the defense representatives note, in both episodes of the Engel Fattakhov case, we are talking about an erroneous classification of the case. In the case of the alleged bribe in the form of home repairs, the crime itself is missing.
As for the “general patronage” in the episode with Dilfat Nagimov, it is not very clear how Fattakhov could provide this patronage. The Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) directly indicates that general patronage is carried out by an official in favor of subordinates or persons to whom his supervisory or control functions extend. But, obviously, nothing like this simply happened in the relationship between Murtazin and Nagimov.
It is possible that such obvious inconsistencies and questionable quality of the investigation are a direct consequence of personnel problems in the Investigative Committee. Back in 2020, plans were announced at the federal level to significantly reduce budget allocations for the activities of the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor's office. At the same time, information appeared that the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) was about to undergo staff optimization.
Most regional offices ended up losing many professional staff. Since then, there has been a significant turnover of staff at the local level.
It seems that today we have witnessed the sad results of this process. As a result: the lawyers claim that the investigators did not provide the court with documents proving their client's involvement in the crimes, and the prosecution witnesses, according to the defense, testified under pressure. We can only hope that the case will be handled by an experienced investigator who will be able to thoroughly study all the circumstances of the payment for repairs in Engel Fattakhov's house and the relations of the Chishma agrofirm with Teploservis LLC.