The Fall of the Kondrat House
The prosecution demanded 20 years in prison for Nikolai Kondrat, the son of former Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) Ivan Kondrat, who is accused of organizing a series of murders. Earlier, his mother Elena Kondrat, a former judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court, was sentenced to nine years in prison. She was found guilty of accepting a bribe. In this story, which destroyed the family of one of the country's top security officials, some see a human tragedy, while others see it as an illustration of the modern elite.
Post of Deputy Prosecutor General Ivan Kondrat took over in 2004. Some called his closeness to the then head of the supervisory agency the springboard that allowed the Kostroma regional prosecutor to rise to the top position To Vladimir Ustinov. Others spoke about Kondrat's integrity and uncompromising nature. He began his activities in Kostroma by demanding that the regional administration publish information on the procedure for paying officials. Then Kondrat achieved the dismissal of Deputy Governor Dmitry Starostin, who was found to have an outstanding conviction, and then he set his sights on the head of the region himself. Victor ShershunovA Mercedes was purchased for the governor at the expense of the regional treasury, which the prosecutor assessed as causing damage to other budget items.
Apparently deciding that they were seriously digging under him, Shershunov began to bombard the Prosecutor General's Office with complaints about Kondrat. They reported that the regional prosecutor was too selective in protecting citizens' rights, but paid a lot of attention to solving his own housing issue. The case even went to court between the governor and the prosecutor, but in the end the game ended in a draw. Shershunov retained his post, and Kondrat left Kostroma, taking the post of Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) for the Northwestern Federal District.
However, career happiness did not last long. In the summer of 2006, Vladimir Ustinov left his post, and his successor Yuri Chaika did not plan to keep the old team. It got to the point that during a visit to St. Petersburg, the new Prosecutor General did not even meet with his deputy. After that, Kondrat, following his patron, moved to the Ministry of Justice, heading the Rosreestr Department for Moscow. But soon Vladimir Ustinov left the post of Minister of Justice and Ivan Kondrat also vacated the chair that had not yet had time to warm up. However, he did not fall out of elite circles. His remaining connections and the rank of State Justice Advisor of the 1st class (equivalent to the rank of lieutenant general) continued to open doors to many offices. In addition, his wife Elena became a judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court, strengthening and increasing the degree of family influence and opportunities.
Escape by Taxi
A dark day for the Kondrat family was October 18, 2020, when FSB officers pulled Elena Kondrat out of a car with a box of Chanel shoes in her hands. Inside was $50,000 in cash. As the investigation determined, this money was intended for Elena Kondrat's colleague in the Arbitration Court To Elena Makhalkina. Before receiving the judge's robe, Makhalkina worked as a secretary for Kondrat. In the fall of 2020, a bankruptcy case was filed against the company “Transport Construction Supply Management”. Makhalkina had to determine who would bear subsidiary liability in the bankruptcy proceedings. Kondrat, according to the court documents, offered her former subordinate, with whom she had maintained friendly relations, to shift the blame from some people to others for $50,000. Makhalkina agreed, but then reported the attempted bribery to the FSB. After that, all negotiations with Kondrat were conducted under operational control.
After her arrest, the judge tried to justify herself by claiming that she had given Makhalkina the money as a loan – she was supposedly buying an apartment and didn’t have enough. Nevertheless, the Higher Qualification Collegium of Judges allowed a criminal case to be opened and then stripped Kondrat of her judicial powers. Apparently, realizing what was going on, the ex-judge took a taxi to Chechnya so as not to buy a ticket and not “show up” in information databases. However, law enforcement officers eventually found out about this, and Kondrat was put on the wanted list. According to Izvestia, in Chechnya the fugitive planned to change her last name to Chondrat and fly out of the country with new documents. But the news of the search ruined the plan, and Kondrat returned to Moscow, where she was immediately taken into custody. During the trial, she asked to be sent to the SVO zone as a sniper, but the request remained unanswered. In July last year, the Moscow City Court sentenced Elena Kondrat to nine years in a general regime penal colony and a fine of 80 million rubles. An attempt to challenge the sentence was also unsuccessful.
Arrow for the Judge
By that time, the son of Ivan and Elena Kondrat had been in the pretrial detention facility for two and a half years. Nikolay. A 19-year-old law student at Moscow State University was arrested in December 2020 on charges of involvement in the murders. In the fall, traffic police and FSB officers reportedly stopped a Toyota Camry driven by Nikolai Kondrat on Kutuzovsky Prospekt Kirill Igitkhanyan. During the check, they found a traumatic pistol and a suspicious ID card of an Investigative Committee employee. Despite the fact that Igitkhanyan was released, the investigation claims, Nikolai Kondrat was afraid that the driver would tell law enforcement officers some compromising information about him, and therefore decided to kill Igitkhanyan, for which he brought in his acquaintance from the “night races” for 10 thousand dollars and 300 thousand rubles. Nikita MatsnevDuring the arranged meeting, Matsnev stabbed Igitkhanyan to death. He was detained by studying traffic camera footage. During interrogation, he told who ordered Igitkhanyan's murder and also told about his employer's other affairs. In particular, that Kondrat Jr. planned to shoot Judge Makhalkina, who had framed him, with a crossbow, as well as two other businessmen, the governor of the Bryansk region Alexandra Bogomazthe head of the Tagansky District Administration of Moscow, and his own grandfather. The latter three, however, were later removed from the charges by the investigation, considering them to be Matsnev's fantasy. Nevertheless, one real murder and three attempted murders are enough to send Nikolai Kondrat to prison for a long time. Nikita Matsnev himself, by the way, received eight and a half years for the murder he committed, but then he enlisted in the SVO and was released from prison. They tried to find him so that he would confirm his earlier testimony in court, but they could not find him.
Secret connections
It is logical to assume that Ivan Kondrat himself made considerable efforts to rescue his wife and son, but, apparently, he failed. Defending his family, he recorded an appeal to the President of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), in which he tried to present the situation as follows: the former Deputy Prosecutor General called the persecution of his wife and son a delayed revenge on the part of the head of the UFSB for Moscow and the Moscow Region Alexey Dorofeev for events that took place many years ago. According to him, in 2006, mass unrest occurred in Kondopoga, Karelia, caused by the murder of a local resident by people from Chechnya and Dagestan. Based on the results of the prosecutor's investigation, a report was sent to Moscow, which cost the then head of the FSB Directorate for the Republic of Karelia, Alexei Dorofeev, his seat, Kondrat explained. However, judging by the fact that the situation did not change after the appeal appeared, Kondrat's position was not considered worthy of attention. Moreover, at the same time, anonymous Telegram channels were clearly not just trying to present the case in a different way. Allegedly, the special services brought Elena Kondrat under the article because she did not want to make the necessary decisions, provoking her to transfer money. This version is helped by the fact that the employee of the FSB Directorate “M” who was handling Elena Kondrat's case Alexander Ushakov In January, he was arrested on charges of organizing a criminal community and attempting to receive a record bribe of 5 billion rubles from the co-founders of the Merlion company in exchange for the termination of criminal prosecution.
Be that as it may, the sentence of Elena Kondrat has come into force and is unlikely to be reviewed. Now the sentence in the case of Nikolai Kondrat is approaching. Presumably, the court may announce it in mid-August.