In the Basmanny Court of the capital, hearings on the merits of the criminal case against the former translator of the Swiss Embassy in Moscow, Natalya Poluektova, begin. She is accused of fraud in the amount of 4.8 million rubles. According to investigators, the translator illegally issued medical insurance payments, although in reality no medical procedures were carried out. Earlier, the court returned the criminal case twice: first, at the request of the defense to eliminate shortcomings, then to determine jurisdiction. At the preliminary hearing, the lawyers of Mrs. Poluektova, who pleads not guilty, succeeded in getting a new translation of some medical documents from French and German into the case file, which, according to the defense, completely refutes the version of the investigation.
The Basmanny Court of the capital began to consider the materials of the criminal case against Natalya Poluektova, who is charged with especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), only on the third attempt. At the end of the year before last, as Kommersant previously told, the process had already begun, but in March last year, the court returned the case to the prosecutor’s office to eliminate shortcomings. The reason was the fact that the documents submitted by the Swiss embassy (part in German, part in French) were translated into Russian with insufficient skill. “I have known French since childhood,” the well-known lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky, who represents the interests of Ms. Poluektova, explained to Kommersant at the time. “And it immediately became clear to me that the investigation was operating with documents incorrectly translated from this language. The errors made in some cases changed the meaning of the document to the exact opposite. For example, the original text indicated that Natalya needed one or another medical procedure, but the translated text indicated that she did not.
As it turned out in court, the documents for the investigation were translated by two specialists: a Russian woman and a Swiss citizen. At the same time, the first could not confirm her qualifications, and the second turned out to be the wife of a Swiss attache, that is, a representative of the interested party.
As Kommersant has already said, claims against Ms. Poluektova from law enforcement agencies appeared after representatives of the Swiss Embassy in Moscow turned to the police in 2019. They said that translator Natalia Poluektova, who worked for many years in the diplomatic mission, knowing that the embassy compensates employees for medical expenses, collected “several hundred” documents allegedly confirming the provision of medical services to her. However, the applicants argued, in fact, in the cases indicated in the papers, Ms Poluektova did not need any treatment.
The investigating authorities agreed with the version of the diplomatic mission and brought the case to court. Natalya Poluektova herself categorically rejects claims against her, pointing to the reality of her diseases. Lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky, who represents the interests of the accused, also does not see any corpus delicti in the actions of the client. At the same time, the translator’s representatives believe that her criminal prosecution was the revenge of her former employers for publishing the details of a certain sex scandal involving high-ranking embassy employees (the diplomatic mission categorically denies this).
The court decision to return the case was appealed, and the appellate instance of the Moscow City Court (MGS) returned the case materials to the Basmanny Court. The IGU decided that translation errors cannot interfere with the consideration of the investigation materials on the merits.
The second attempt to conduct the process was made at the end of 2022, however, this time it did not take place either – the presiding judge doubted the correctness of determining the jurisdiction of the case.
As noted in the court decision, in accordance with the law, a criminal case is subject to consideration at the place where the crime was committed. Meanwhile, it follows from the plot of the prosecution that the actions of the accused, qualified by the investigation as fraud, were committed by Mrs. Poluektova during two periods: from January 26, 2010 to May 2013, and also from June 2013 to August 2018. At the same time, cash in the amount of 4.8 million rubles. she received it in the accounting department of the embassy. “Fraud is recognized as completed from the moment someone else’s property passes into the possession of the guilty person or from the moment he receives the right to dispose of someone else’s property,” the court decision says. However, the accounting department of the embassy at that time was located in house number 6 in Serpov Lane, on the territory assigned to the jurisdiction of the Khamovniki District Court of Moscow. In this regard, the Basmanny Court decided to send the materials of the case to colleagues from the Khamovnichesky Court.
However, this decision was also appealed by representatives of the accused. As Alexander Dobrovinsky explained to Kommersant, the defense wants the trial to start as soon as possible: the lawyer has no doubts that the process should end with an acquittal.
As a result, the appeal instance of the IGU again canceled the decision of the colleagues of the first instance and returned the case to the Basmanny Court of the capital for trial. The hearings were repeatedly postponed for various reasons, including the absence of representatives of the injured party and witnesses. However, at the preliminary hearing, the defense succeeded in securing the satisfaction of the petition to add to the case file another translation of the controversial medical documents, made by linguists on behalf of the lawyers. According to Alexander Dobrovinsky, the qualitatively translated materials testify to the complete innocence of his client.
