“He knew for sure that it was forbidden”: Pokrov is preparing for a new trial of Navalny

The criminal case on Navalny's contempt of court (Article 297 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), by decision of the investigation, was combined with the main charge of fraud.

In the first case, we recall, we are talking about an incident that occurred in the Babushkinsky Court of Moscow in February last year.

Then the oppositionist was sentenced to a fine of 850 thousand rubles for slander against the veteran of the Great Patriotic War Ignat Artyomenko.

In total, there are two episodes in the case, but it is not known for certain which statements by Navalny are incriminated as disrespectful.

As RT previously found out, the attention of the investigators could be attracted by Navalny's statement to the judge about the "fabricated case."

But the maximum that threatens an oppositionist for contempt of court if found guilty is 200,000 rubles fine.

Much more serious - both in scale and in terms of the punishment provided for in the article of the Criminal Code - is the charge of fraud.

Here we are talking about a real term up to 15 years in prison.

Little has been officially reported about this case so far.

According to the information posted on the website of the Lefortovsky Court, Navalny is charged with four episodes of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The essence of the accusation is not officially disclosed, and the lawyers are under a subscription not to disclose the materials of the investigation. 

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Paying bills

However, most likely, we are talking about a case that the Investigative Committee opened at the end of 2020.

As the department reported, the FBK and a number of related funds collected 588 million rubles in donations from citizens during Navalny’s so-called presidential campaign, of which the oppositionist “spent 356 million for personal purposes: the acquisition of personal property, material assets and payment of expenses, including holiday abroad.

The amount named by the UK, as RT repeatedly wrote earlier, was collected in the period from 2016 to 2019.

In addition to the FBK, this scheme involved the Fifth Season of the Year Foundation, liquidated by a court decision in 2018, as well as the Fund for the Protection of Citizens’ Rights** recognized as an extremist organization last year, and a number of other funds, on the collection of funds through which and on the formation "alternative budget" FBK RT spoke in detail in his investigation.

In the donation fraud case, Alexei Navalny appears not alone, but together with “other persons”.

Officially, the investigation does not name them, but, according to an RT source in law enforcement agencies, he "is assigned the role of an organizer."

But other members of the FBK team and related structures played a significant role in these monetary schemes.

In particular, the money went to cryptocurrency accounts and personal bank cards of the former head of Navalny’s headquarters *** Leonid Volkov, who, for the same purpose of collecting donations, created an “FBK clone” in the United States last year together with the fugitive co-owner of Probusinessbank Alexander Zheleznyak.

And for the “presidential campaign” of 2018, Volkov, along with another activist, Ruslan Shavedinnov, donated 63 million rubles.  

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True, for now, Navalny will have to answer to the court alone.

Most of his supporters hastily left Russia.

And although Rosfinmonitoring included the former leaders of his team - Lyubov Sobol, Georgy Alburov and Leonid Volkov - into the list of persons involved in extremist and terrorist activities, the cryptocurrency they collected, as RT recently found out, continues to be withdrawn abroad.

In addition, since official information was not updated by the beginning of the trial of Navalny, it is possible that the amount of embezzlement appearing in the case may change upwards.

So, a RT source in law enforcement noted a year ago that the investigation was recalculating these funds, taking into account cryptocurrency transactions.

According to the data he voiced, employees of the funds mentioned above could withdraw not 356 million, but almost 587 million rubles.

unjust enrichment

But not even the waste of money for personal purposes, but the very fact of their collection was already in the nature of a scam, says lawyer Ilya Remeslo.

According to him, the founder of the FBK had no right to collect donations for the 2018 presidential campaign - and he himself was well aware of this.

We are talking about a legislative ban on running for office in the presence of an outstanding conviction for a serious crime.

And at that time, Navalny had one in the so-called Kirovles case (about embezzling 16 million rubles from the company), for which the oppositionist received five years probation and a fine of 500 thousand rubles in February 2017.

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The verdict was handed down just a month and a half after Navalny's announcement of his nomination for the post of head of state, the expert recalled.

“This decision of the court of the city of Kirov was not canceled by anyone.

Starting from that date, Navalny already knew for sure that he was forbidden to run, the lawyer explained.

“Nevertheless, he continued to raise funds, collected them for more than a year, even for decency without warning donors on his website about the risks.”

There has already been a precedent for recognizing the collection of donations as fraudulent, reminded the Craft.

So, in 2018, a resident of Karelia, Mikhail Kostenko, who donated 50 thousand rubles to Navalny, managed to get the money back in the Savelovsky Court of Moscow.

The court in its decision recognized them as unjustified enrichment.

True, Kostenko did not manage to get his de facto back right away, says Remeslo, and the donated money had to be subsequently forcibly recovered from Navalny.

Thus, the lawyer concluded, Navalny knew that the Central Election Commission did not have the right to register him as a candidate for elections, and by announcing the fundraising for his campaign, he misled an unlimited number of people.

From the point of view of the law, this can be interpreted as an attempt at fraud, Craft explained.

And at the moment when the first donation for the election campaign was made, the crime is considered completed by law, he concluded.

* The organization is recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Moscow City Court of 06/09/2021.

** The organization was recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Moscow City Court dated 06/09/2021.

*** Public movement "Headquarters of Navalny" - the organization is recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Moscow City Court of 06/09/2021.