Consideration on the merits of the criminal case against the ex-governor of the Penza region Ivan Belozertsev starts on March 2. Due to the poor health of one of the defendants, accused of giving a bribe to the head of the Biotek pharmaceutical company, Boris Shpigel, the meeting will be held in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center.
The Izmailovsky Court of Moscow refused to return the case of the ex-governor of the Penza region Ivan Belozertsev for further investigation. As a result, the consideration of the case on the merits starts on March 2, and the pre-trial detention center “Matrosskaya Tishina” is chosen as the venue for the action and, probably, for the entire process. This is due to the poor health of Boris Shpigel, who is accused of giving a bribe to the former head of the region.
Recall that we are talking about the amount of 31 million rubles, which the ex-governor allegedly received from Spiegel through intermediaries for helping his firms in concluding pharmaceutical contracts that were beneficial to them. Five more people are involved in the case – the wife of the head of Biotek, Yevgenia Shpigel, the director of OAO Pharmacia (this company manages the pharmacy business of the Biotek group of companies), Anton Koloskov, the driver of the governor, Gennady Markov, and the deputy head of the representative office of the Penza Region at the Cabinet, a relative of Belozertsev Fedor Fedotov. All of them are arrested.
Recall that during the investigation, 3.5 thousand paintings were also arrested from Boris Shpigel, and 61 properties from Belozertsev and his relatives. Total — in the amount of 1.8 billion rubles
At the preliminary hearing, lawyers for the main person involved in the case, Mr. Belozertsev, insisted that violations had been committed during the approval of the indictment, which “prevent the decision on the verdict case.”
“Thus, the investigator refused to include our witnesses, specialists and experts in the list of persons to be summoned to court,” lawyer Alexei Shuvarin quotes Business FM. Therefore, the defendant’s right to defense was violated.
We are talking about seven citizens, as well as specialists and experts who, at the request of the defense, gave conclusions about the impossibility of fitting 20 million rubles into a bag, transferred, according to the investigation, by Boris Shpigel to an intermediary and delivered by him to the representative office of the Penza region in Moscow. The money, according to the case file, was taken from the head of Biotek and handed over to the governor by Belozertsev’s relative Fyodor Fedotov.
Lawyers also disputed the amount of bribes mentioned in the indictment. Belozertsev’s lawyer noted that the wording was “not less than 31 million rubles,” while the fine under the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “taking a bribe” is a multiple of the exact amount of the bribe received and the court cannot assign it approximately.
There are claims to the investigation and about the “method, time, and place of acquiring weapons.” We are talking about a short-barreled rifled firearm and ammunition found during a search in the office. According to investigators, it was illegally acquired no later than March 20, 2021.
– It also deprives the accused of the right to defense. He has been governor since 2015, and if the weapon was acquired then, then the statute of limitations for this article, which is six years, has already expired, Shuvarin said.
Other defendants supported the petition for further investigation, asking also to change the measure of restraint to house arrest or release on bail. Prosecutor Elena Sukhova opposed: earlier, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation left the participants in the case in a pre-trial detention center until March 20, and there are no grounds for additional investigation at all.
As a result, Judge Yekaterina Stepina rejected both petitions of the defense, appointing the consideration of the case on the merits on March 2. The meeting will be visiting: almost from the very moment of his arrest, Boris Shpigel has been in the hospital of the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center. His defenders report that he has serious heart problems, as well as a number of “neurological disorders.”
Recall that after the arrest of Mr. Belozertsev, former Minister of Industry Mikhail Torgashin migrated from Penza to Saratov: in the region he took the post of Deputy Chairman-Minister of Industry and Energy. A year earlier, Vitaly Makarov first became an adviser to the governor, and then the head of the Petrovsky district – he was deputy mayor in Penza. True, in July last year, he resigned, leaving a place for ex-Minister of Mari El Alexander Grechikho.