Vedomosti
Parliamentary candidates fake income disclosure
The majority of Russian parliamentary candidates have submitted false income information, Transparency International said. Russian authorities seem to have overlooked most of them.
As many as 266 current lower house members will seek reelection on December 4. The Center for Anti-Corruption Research and Initiative, Transparency International Russia, has compared their income information submitted to the Central Election Commission (CEC) with the 2010 property and income declarations they posted on the State Duma website as required by law.
Only 30% (79 lawmakers) submitted identical data, Ivan Ninenko, deputy head of TI Russia, told Vedomosti. Seventeen people showed discrepancies exceeding 1 million rubles ($32,000), while the ruling United Russia party is a leader in the number and the size of information disclosure discrepancies. TI has asked the CEC and the Federal Tax Service to double check the data submitted.
Airat Khairullin, a United Russia candidate and co-owner of Edelweis financial group, topped the list by declaring an income of 212 million rubles in May and in September he declared an annual income of 70 million rubles. Sergei Petrov from A Just Russia showed 89 million rubles in May and 1.9 million rubles in September. Grigory Anikeyev from United Russia forgot to mention German properties he owns including woodland and cropland, as well as transport facilities, which were included in his income and property declaration in May. Liberal-Democratic lawmaker Andrei Lugovoi, who is wanted in Britain for allegedly murdering Alexander Litvinenko, left out a 5,400 sq ft house he owns.
Unexpectedly, some lawmakers declared higher incomes in September than they had claimed earlier.
Most of the lawmakers interviewed by Vedomosti said the mistakes were not their fault. They said they submitted the same declaration both times, and the State Duma website contained the correct version. There must be some data breakdown at the CEC. A source in Petrov’s team admitted to having mistakenly submitted a declaration for nine months of 2011 to the CEC. Anikeyev was unavailable for comment.
The CEC does not verify the candidates’ declarations but sends them to the services concerned, CEC member Yevgeny Kolyushin said adding that they only published the data. He also said the discrepancies will not influence the candidates’ registration and does not believe the commission will revise and publish corrected information.
A tax service source declined to comment on the TI findings.
The picture at the last elections was similar, said lawyer Vadim Prokhorov. The CEC found inaccuracies in all candidates’ declarations except those of United Russia members. Ten years ago, a candidate could have been withdrawn from registration for submitting false data. Now all they face is negative publicity. But some candidates appear to have avoided even that – so the ruling party candidates can tamper with their declarations as much as they like, Prokhorov said.
Moskovskiye Novosti
Russian authorities bracing up to abolish trial by jury in Russia
Plans to abolish trial by jury for abuse-of-office cases deserve to be at least considered, President Dmitry Medvedev told the assembled law enforcers at his Gorki residence yesterday. The idea to dispense with the jury as a Russian judiciary institution seems to be taking root in the minds of the authorities and lawmakers alike.
The security agencies have already succeeded in withdrawing terrorist and extremist cases from jury trials under the pretext that juries in the North Caucasus with its strong kinship traditions will always acquit the accused. The legality of this exemption was confirmed by the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling prompted law enforcers in the State Duma to consider a bill on abolishing jury trials for criminal associations and banditry cases. This move was also preceded by President Medvedev making a proposal to “think it over.”
Defense lawyers and rights activists complained that their own constitutional rights were in peril. President Medvedev responded by saying yesterday that as lawyers “we understand that far from all categories of cases can be considered by jury trial.”
Medvedev holds that after the disintegration of the USSR juries have been entrusted with too many cases. Some experts also tend to believe that trial by jury was introduced in the 1990s under pressure from advocates of Anglo-Saxon law. According to Professor Alexander Grinenko of the Moscow Institute of International Relations, “Juries appeared in Russia when the budget depended on the U.S. parliament. It was one of their conditions that we introduce trial by jury. We did, and it transpired that many cases were bent in favor of defendants even when they were clearly guilty.”
The Russian leaders, who are fond of pointing out that they hold law degrees, seem to be clearly distrustful of trial by the people. A similar crisis is brewing in continental Europe. Russia’s Anatoly Kovler, a judge at the European Court of Human Rights, told MN that the ECHR had approved an unprecedented ruling with regard to juries whose verdicts, it said, were a breach of human rights.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
United Russia member seeks political asylum in Georgia
The Novosibirsk Regional Legislative Assembly stripped Dmitry Gordeyev of his membership in the State Duma following fraud charges. In October, Gordeyev, now on the international wanted list, requested political asylum in Georgia and was immediately expelled from United Russia.
Surprisingly, it was Gordeyev himself who filed his preterm resignation notice to the Legislative Assembly. Experts confirmed the handwriting on the document was Gordeyev’s.
In April, 2010, Gordeyev was charged with large-scale fraud for accepting over 11 million rubles from a construction company in the Novosibirsk Region. Soon after facing the accusations, the lawmaker did not show up for a police interrogation and was put on the international wanted list.
In a video recorded for the media in April, 2011, Gordeyev says he had been framed, and accused the Federal Security Service (FSB) of blackmail. In October, he posted a message in his blog saying he had escaped to Thailand, “checked into a hospital and started writing appeals – to FSB, the Investigation Committee and the Prosecutor’s Office, convinced that in a month or two this gang will be arrested and the allegations will fizzle out. The damaging evidence I hold against this mob would be more than enough to put each of them behind bars for blackmail and keep them there for ten years.”
However, his complaints received no response. Later, the lawmaker was rumored to have been kidnapped by a gang and taken to Turkey via Malaysia. Gordeyev is said to have fled from Turkey to Georgia, where he asked for political asylum. His United Russia colleagues could not come to terms with such a step and expelled him from the party.
Oleg Ivaninsky, United Russia representative in the Novosibirsk Regional Legislative Assembly made the following comment: “If he believes he is right he must stay in this country and prove his innocence.” Gordeyev replied in his blog that he “did not flee after stealing 11 million rubles but left the country after paying 40 million rubles to corrupt cops.”
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