The active phase of criminal hearings has begun in the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court…

In the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court, the active phase of hearings of a criminal case has begun on charges of participants in the expedition of the Ministry of Natural Resources to catch falcons, about which the Cheka-OGPU wrote earlier. At the trial, interesting facts emerged: in particular, that some of the seized falcons eventually died due to the fact that investigators sent them to the local zoo. Among the accused in the case are Razakov Shukhrat Abdulaevich, Bondarenko Vadim Valentinovich and Yakimovich Oleg Alekseevich. The preliminary investigation authorities accuse them of committing a crime under Part 3 of Art. 258.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal extraction and trafficking of valuable wild animals and aquatic biological resources belonging to species listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation and (or) protected by international treaties of the Russian Federation by a perfect organized group). The court is clearly in a hurry: over the past three sessions, the court managed to study all the written materials of the case (about 20 volumes) and have already begun questioning witnesses.

The Cheka-OGPU found out that yesterday the first witness was interrogated – Alexander Aleksandrovich Selnitsin, who holds the position of assistant at the department of state hunting supervision of licensing activities and the state hunting register of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Kamchatka Territory. According to him, he took part in the inspection of the caught gyrfalcons: they were all younger than 1 year and in good condition. According to the scientific program of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Ecology, chicks under 1 year of age were planned to be caught from the wild, but the condition of the gyrfalcons changed greatly after the detention of the expedition members. So, after the birds were removed from the Kamchatka Falcon Center and placed in the Elizovo Zoo, two of the thirteen chicks have already died. Another detail that emerged at the trial is the active assistance to the investigation from former activists of the World Wildlife Fund, which is banned in Russia. Previously, this organization itself participated in the capture of falcons, after which the rare birds ended up abroad.

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