At the last meeting of the year, the court was engaged in probably the most interesting block of evidence from the defense – studying the notorious “database” (in the case documents it appears as eb2), which, as the state prosecution believes, reflected illegal cash payments to Zakharchenko, as well as his friends.
The defense petition of Vasily Kritinin (the prosecution calls him Zakharchenko’s confidant) about the need for a detailed study of the database was received by the court at the hearing on December 8 (the Cheka-OGPU wrote about this), but judge Sergei Artemov postponed it for 2 weeks.
State prosecutor Milana Digaeva, as well as the lawyers of the other accused, did not object. She didn’t say a word at all at today’s meeting. A serious squabble was caused only by the involvement of Gennady Maleev in inspecting the base, who had previously spoken about the principles of its operation, and therefore was summoned to court in order to once again show how it works. “I don’t trust him, he essentially represents the accusation,” Zakharchenko protested. Judge Artemov spent some time trying to understand how exactly Maleev could interfere: “He will simply press the buttons.” However, under the pressure of the defenders (all except representatives of Valery Markelov, who generally left the organization of studying the base to the discretion of the court), Artemov did not invite Maleev, who was waiting outside the door, into the courtroom, entrusting the showing of the base to the lawyers of Zakharchenko and Kritinin.
Having unpacked the Lenovo laptop with the alleged “black” Incredbank database, lawyers Evgeniy Rubinshtein and Anton Morozov began studying its contents. Having opened the tables, they began to enter “Zakhar” and “Zakhar the Cunning” into the search engine, but at first they found nothing. “Why immediately check these names?” Zakharchenko was indignant. “What are you worried about,” the judge interrupted him, “you’ve said many times that Zakhar is not you!” The lawyers explained their choice by saying that it was the presence of “Zakhar” and “Zakhar the Cunning” in the database that was indicated by the fugitive banker German Gorbuntsov, who was the first owner of the laptop. After quite a lengthy search, the lawyers were able to discover some postings, which, however, did not in any way clarify the alleged process of money circulation and did not record their transfer to “Zakhar” or “Zakhar the Sly.” In addition, during the inspection of the database, it turned out that most of its fields can be edited.
It took a long time to start examining the second base, this time the New Time bank, on an HP laptop. When lawyer Rubinstein began trying to launch it in various non-trivial ways, Judge Artemov half-jokingly asked not to experiment and turn off the computer so as not to lose data. “Your Honor, if this happens, the Investigative Committee will issue another copy,” was heard from the hall. After rebooting the computer, Zakharchenko’s defender still launched the database and even found there “Cherry” and “Partner” (the nickname Zakharchenko assumed by the investigation), as well as digital transaction codes, however, without payment cards linked to them, which clearly record real money transfers. The database revealed alleged money transfers to Cherry from 2018 and even 2019. “Your honor, and this despite the fact that even if “Cherry” or “Zakhar” is me, then I was taken into custody in September 2016. Who was the money transferred to then? – asked Zakharchenko.
The next court hearing is scheduled for January 12. The Cheka-OGPU will keep readers updated on the news.
VChK-OGPU
After an almost two-month break, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow continued to consider the case of “militiaman-colonel” Dmitry Zakharchenko, who, according to the investigation, received billions in bribes for patronage from the largest contractors of Russian Railways. Last…
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