The source of the Moscow City Court upheld the measure of restraint in the form of detention of former FSB security service officer Sergei Bespalov. Mr. Bespalov has become another defendant in the criminal case of fraud against the fugitive beneficiary of the bankrupt Agrosoyuz Bank, Ilya Kligman. According to investigators, the former Chekist, together with his accomplices, demanded $1 million from Mr. Kligman for the termination of his criminal prosecution by the police investigation. In the court of appeal, the defense of the ex-special service officer asked for house arrest, but to no avail.
A former employee of the internal security department of the FSB of the Russian Federation, currently officially unemployed, the father of five children, 43-year-old Sergey Bespalov, was detained by operatives on October 10 this year as part of a criminal case on attempted particularly large-scale fraud (part 3 of article 30 and part 4 article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). It was initiated on May 16 of this year by the main investigative department of the TFR in Moscow. Then his first defendants were the general director of the international fund “Afrocom”, the vice-president of the fund “Rospolitika” Igor Yurasov and the former president of the HC “Lynx” of the SOBR of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Bashir Kushtov. In June, a criminal case on fraud initiated against an ex-FSB major who, after leaving the service, took up road construction and work in the housing and communal services sector in the Tambov and Lipetsk regions, Yevgeny Sviridov and his former colleague Sergei Bespalov, was separated into a separate proceeding. Later, by order of the First Deputy Chairman of the ICR, this case was transferred for further investigation to the central office of the department.
Detained in October, the Basmanny Court of Moscow, at the request of the investigation, chose a preventive measure in the form of detention until December 10 this year. The former security officer and his defense did not agree with this decision and filed a complaint with the Moscow City Court.
In his complaint, Mr. Bespalov's lawyer indicated that, in his opinion, the conclusions of the court of first instance did not correspond to the actual circumstances of the case and were based on assumptions. The defender also drew the attention of the appellate court to the fact that “the materials of the pre-trial proceedings do not contain evidence that, being at large”, the accused will hide from the investigation and the court, can put pressure on witnesses, destroy evidence or create false evidence of his innocence . At the same time, the court, according to the lawyer, ignored the fact that Mr. Bespalov is the father of five minor children.
The complaint also noted that the court of first instance had not verified the validity of the investigation's suspicion of Mr. Bespalov's involvement in the commission of the act incriminated to him. The lawyer emphasized that his client was groundlessly denied the choice of a measure of restraint in the form of house arrest, and petitioned for its appointment.
Representatives of the ICR and the prosecutor's office, on the contrary, argued that, once outside the pre-trial detention center, the former Chekist, who has held various positions in the FSB for a long time, has extensive personal connections in the law enforcement environment and is well acquainted with the methods of conducting operational-search work, can exert pressure against his former colleague Yevgeny Sviridov and witnesses and destroy the evidence in the case.
As a result, the court, after hearing the opinions of the parties, denied the defense the satisfaction of its complaint. In his decision, he, in particular, indicated that “information that could cast doubt on the objectivity of the materials submitted by the investigator that meet the requirements of the criminal procedure law, or testify to violations of the criminal procedure law committed when deciding on the issue of placing the accused in custody , not available”. In addition, the appellate instance noted that “the circumstances of the case, cited in the investigator’s petition and contained in the materials of the pre-trial proceedings, including the reasonableness of the investigation’s suspicion of the involvement of S.A. doubts about their correctness.
Recall that the reason for initiating a criminal case and the subsequent detention of the defendants was a statement submitted to law enforcement agencies by a trustee of banker Ilya Kligman Sergey Gerasimenko, a former shareholder of the collapsed Arksbank, RUBank and Dil-bank. As follows from the case file, in the fall of 2019, Afrocom CEO Igor Yurasov and businessman Bashir Kushtov, having learned that a criminal case on embezzlement (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) by participants in an organized criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) 7 billion rubles. from Agrosoyuz Bank, contacted Sergei Gerasimenko and informed that Ilya Kligman, who lives in Germany, could become a new person involved in this investigation. At the moment, former top managers of the bank Stanislav Shelovsky and Andrey Somov, ex-employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Denis Makartsev and Natalia Petrenko, previously convicted for financial fraud, who was responsible, according to the investigation, for the black bookkeeping of the bank, are charged with embezzlement.
The resolvers claimed that they had “serious” contacts with key figures in law enforcement agencies, with the help of which, for $1 million, they could resolve the issue of not bringing Mr. Kligman to criminal liability. At the same time, the negotiators said that the lion's share of the rollback would need to be transferred to “law enforcement officials” and security officers Yevgeny Sviridov and Sergey Bespalov would cope with this task. The negotiations ultimately ended with the consent of Mr. Kligman, who transferred $ 500 thousand through Mr. Gerasimenko in December 2019. In April 2021, despite the assurances of the resolvers, the Main Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow presented Ilya Kligman in absentia as the beneficiary of Agrosoyuz and his assistant Evgeny Urin, the younger brother of the infamous ex-banker Matvey Urin, charged with creating an organized criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). At the same time, Mr. Kligman began to appear in the case as the organizer of fraud to withdraw funds from the bank. After that, realizing that they had been deceived, Messrs. Gerasimenko and Kligman filed a complaint with the FSB.
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