The governor of the Kirov region, Nikita Belykh, was detained in Moscow, Life reports (in the article for some reason he is called the former governor):

Employees of the Russian Investigative Committee detained the former governor of the Kirov region in the capital. According to sources, he will soon be delivered to the central office of the ICR to carry out the necessary investigative actions.

The Department for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Committee of Russia has opened a criminal case against the Governor of the Kirov Region, Nikita Belykh, for receiving a bribe (Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

According to the investigation, Nikita Belykh personally and through an intermediary received bribes on an especially large scale totaling 400 thousand euros (which corresponds to 24.1 million rubles) for performing actions in favor of the bribe-giver and JSC Novovyatsky Ski Combine and LLC controlled by him. Forestry Management Company”, as well as for general patronage and connivance in the service when the Government of the Kirov Region monitors the implementation of investment projects by enterprises and conducts business activities in the territory of the Kirov Region.

Today, investigators from the Investigative Committee of Russia, in cooperation with officers of the FSB of Russia, detained Belykh red-handed while accepting a bribe in one of the restaurants in Moscow.

Anticipating the hysteria that supporters and comrades raise in such cases, I want to immediately cool the ardor: corruption crimes have no political overtones. I think that citizens Khoroshavin and Gaiser can confirm this. To paraphrase well-known expressions - “A bribe has no smell... but sometimes it glows. It’s a bribe and a bribe to Africa.” The only thing that can guarantee the investigation is the comprehensiveness and objectivity of the investigation.

Photo: SK

The day before, Belykh wrote on his Facebook:

June 24, 19:00 Nikita Belykh was brought to the main building of the Investigative Committee for interrogation, as reported live on Life.

June 24, 19:04 Nikita Belykh was detained during an operational experiment while receiving marked money, a law enforcement source told TASS. “100 euro bills marked with a special solution were handed over to Belykh under the control of operational officers as part of an operational experiment,” the agency’s interlocutor said. According to him, Nikita Belykh is the only one detained in the case. “The investigation has no claims against the persons who transferred money to the governor,” he explained.

June 24, 19:11 An Interfax source reports that Belykh was detained while receiving the second part of the bribe, the first was given to him earlier. Initially, the governor denied his guilt, but then operatives showed him traces of banknotes marked with a special solution, the source added.

June 24, 19:17 Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Kirov Region Alexander Galitskikh said that he was “shocked” by the information about the detention of Belykh. “I’m now in the Samara region at the iVolga youth forum, I found out about this five minutes ago. I’m shocked. I can’t comment on anything,” he told RIA Novosti.

June 24, 19:18 The investigation will seek the arrest of Belykh, given his status and “extensive connections,” TASS reports.

June 24, 19:30 Life reports that Belykh was detained in a restaurant located at 8 Novinsky Boulevard. The Lotte Plaza business center is located at this address.

June 24, 19:38

I am shocked by the fact that N. Belykh was detained. However, there is no doubt: he was caught red-handed, the evidence is clear. There is no smell of politics here: pure criminality

— Alexander Khinshtein (@Khinshtein) June 24, 2016

Belykh's lawyer says on RBC that there were grounds for Belykh's detention. Great lawyer

— Stanislav the Wise (@StMydry) June 24, 2016

June 24, 19:45 Interfax writes that one of the co-owners of Forestry Management Company LLC was the Kirovles company. Kirovles owned 25% of the company's shares.

June 24, 19:54 The governor’s mother, Zinaida Bely, commented on the situation. “I think this is nonsense, this simply cannot be. I know my son too well,” she said in an interview with Life. “This is definitely a provocation, but from whose side, I don’t know.”

June 24, 20:02 In April 2015, the former owner of the Novovyatsky Ski Plant, Albert Laritsky, was arrested by FSB officers on charges of fraud, Vedomosti writes. Now, according to SPARK-Interfax, the company is owned by the German Südheimer Car Technik Fertribs Gmb.H.

RBC writes that, according to preliminary data, Belykh will spend the night in a pre-trial detention center, and tomorrow, June 25, the Basmanny Court will consider the issue of his arrest.

June 24, 20:33 They came to the administration of the Kirov region with searches, Interfax reports. When asked whether there would be any comments in connection with the detention of regional governor Nikita Belykh on suspicion of bribery, the agency’s source replied: “No one will say anything. The Investigative Committee is working with the governor’s assistant. Searches are underway.” According to him, searches are taking place “in the building and everywhere.”

June 24, 21:20 Aleksey Kuznetsov, Deputy Prime Minister, was appointed acting head of the Kirov region even before Belykh’s arrest. “Today the governor was on a business trip and Alexey Borisovich Kuznetsov was appointed acting head of the region,” a source told RIA Novosti.

June 24, 22:03 The interrogation of Nikita Belykh has been completed, the car with him left the Investigative Committee, a source in law enforcement agencies told RIA Novosti.

June 24, 22:07 Nikita Belykh was brought to the Basmanny court, Kommersant correspondent Emin Jafarov told Varlamov.ru.


Photo: Emin Jafarov/Kommersant

June 24, 22:16 Belykh did not admit guilt in accepting a bribe in the amount of 400 thousand euros. The governor stated this in court, Moscow Speaks reports.

June 24, 22:16 The Basmanny Court of Moscow will decide the issue of the arrest of the Governor of the Kirov Region Nikita Belykh tomorrow, June 25. Court press secretary Yuno Tsareva reported this to TASS. “The whites were brought, but the petition was not received. According to the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, a court hearing cannot be held after 10 p.m.,” she said.

June 24, 22:28 AFP photojournalist Dmitry Serebryakov, who is now in the Basmanny court, reports that the meeting had begun, but the press was not allowed into the hall. Journalist Emin Jafarov told Varlamov.ru that the meeting was postponed until tomorrow.

June 24, 22:37“The court did not receive materials for the arrest of Belykh. He was brought and taken into the courtroom, but since there are no materials, after 10 pm, according to the Code of Criminal Procedure, the court does not have the right to consider petitions, even if the investigator brought the materials later. There was no meeting, he was taken away. The materials will be available tomorrow,” RIA Novosti quotes court press secretary Yuno Tsareva.

June 24, 22:39 Nikita Belykh was brought to a temporary detention center, TASS writes. “Until the decision to arrest him, he will be kept in a temporary detention facility. If the court decides to take Belykh into custody, he will be placed in a pre-trial detention center,” the agency’s source explained.

June 25, 2016

June 25, 10:04 Nikita Belykh has been charged with receiving a bribe on an especially large scale (part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the Investigative Committee said. He faces from eight to 15 years in prison.

June 25, 10:12 Nikita Belykh’s lawyer will be Vadim Prokhorov, who is also the lawyer of Boris Nemtsov’s family. The lawyer himself told an RBC correspondent about this.

June 25, 12:00 Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the effectiveness of Belykh’s work as governor of the Kirov region. At the same time, the presidential press secretary noted that Putin was informed about the detention, but law enforcement agencies work independently and there were no consultations in advance.

“The president was informed about this detention, naturally, law enforcement and investigative agencies work independently, so there is no talk of any kind of consultations in advance,” RIA Novosti quotes Peskov. “You know, this decision is made by the president, at what point to deprive from office. I cannot announce such a decision now, it will be his decision.”

June 25, 12:08 The authorities of the Kirov region continue to work as usual. “Everything is as usual with us. All events planned for the weekend will be carried out. No emergency situation has been introduced in connection with the detention of the head of the region,” the government of the Kirov region told the Interfax-Povolzhye agency.

June 25, 14:38 The Basmanny Court of Moscow arrested Nikita Belykh for two months. “The court decided: to grant the investigation’s request. To choose a preventive measure against the accused Belykh in the form of detention for two months, that is, until August 24,” Interfax quotes the judge.

According to the investigator, another preventive measure could allow the governor of the Kirov region to hide from the investigation and impede the progress of the investigation. “We ask you to include information about Belykh’s state of health, as well as the results of operational search activities provided by the FSB of the Russian Federation, according to which information was obtained about the possibility of Belykh putting pressure on witnesses, as well as taking measures to conceal them from the preliminary investigation authorities and the court,” quotes TASS investigator.

Belykh, in turn, said that he was not going to leave the country and put pressure on witnesses. “I did not have and do not have any plans to hide from the court or go abroad,” he said.

The lawyer asked the court to postpone the arrest of Belykh and extend the period of his detention by 72 hours, but he was refused. He also asked to send his client under house arrest in the Moscow region. According to the defense lawyer, “in any case, this case will reach the European Court of Human Rights.”

The investigator, speaking in court, said that Belykh received a bribe from a foreign investor. He added that the governor does not deny the fact of receiving the money, but considers it not a bribe - the funds were intended for the needs of Kirov. “The object of the crime was found on him, traces of the crime were found on him, eyewitnesses pointed to Belykh as the person who committed the crime,” the investigator added. – The alleged crime is particularly serious and directed against state power. It is the most dangerous, and also has a systemic and ongoing nature.”

Oh how! A German citizen gave a bribe to Nikita Belykh. Did you carry such cash across the border? Then he flagged it to the FSB? Interesting. Or did you withdraw it from the bank? Which one?

— Alexey Venediktov (@aavst) June 25, 2016

“I consider myself innocent, and I will do everything possible to legally prove this,” Novaya Gazeta quotes the governor. “I believe that house arrest is also an excessive measure. I want to honestly prove my innocence. I am a fairly successful official and I want to prove that I did not take bribes, I do not take them and never intended to. And this can only be done through a normal, adversarial trial, and not by leaving and making comments from abroad.”

The decision to arrest Belykh was made by Judge Artur Karpov, who is a participant in the “Magnitsky list” and the “Savchenko list.”

Photo: agency "Moscow"

June 25, 15:57 Belykh will serve his arrest in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center, a source familiar with the situation told Interfax.

June 25, 17:19 One of the lawyers of the arrested governor, Sergei Teterin, explained the origin of the special paint on his hands. “Most likely, the glowing paint on his hands appeared after he shook hands with a man who was carrying a bag of money. But Belykh did not touch the money,” RIA Novosti quotes the defense attorney.

June 25, 18:37 The foreign investor who, according to the investigator, transferred money to the governor, is presumably the German Yuri Sudheimer, writes Meduza. In 2013, he became the owner of Novovyatsky Ski Plant OJSC, which is mentioned in the Belykh case. Sudheimer appears in the criminal case as a witness.

June 25, 18:45 Those around Belykh assume that the money transferred to him was not a bribe, Interfax reports, citing an unnamed source close to the governor. As the agency’s interlocutor said, Belykh had previously held a meeting of entrepreneurs at which they discussed the creation of an extra-budgetary fund through sponsorship investments, funds from which were to be used for the repair of city and regional facilities - facades, buildings and roads.

“The reason for the meeting with potential investors was the lack of funds in the budget of the city and region for the data needed,” the source said. According to him, one of those who agreed to invest their money in the extra-budgetary fund was the co-owner of the Forestry Management Company and the Novovyatsky Ski Combine, Yuri Sudheimer, a native of the USSR, with German citizenship and living in Germany.

“In the restaurant where the arrest took place, Belykh was alone with Sudheimer, now the latter is being investigated as a witness in the case,” the agency’s interlocutor said.

June 25, 18:55 Comment by Anatoly Chubais (he, like Belykh, was a member of the Union of Right Forces party):

June 26, 14:34 The post of governor of the Kirov region may be taken by United Russia senator Vyacheslav Timchenko, a source in the leadership of United Russia told RIA Novosti.

June 25, 16:45 An unnamed RIA Novosti source close to the investigation said that Belykh was detained while receiving the third part of the amount. It was previously reported that upon receipt of the second. The arrested governor himself claims that this money was not a bribe.

"On Friday, Belykh received from Yuri Sudheimer a package containing 150 thousand euros and a bottle of wine. In his testimony, the official confirmed that he took the package. This is the third tranche. The first - 200 thousand euros - he received from Laritsky back in May 2014. The second was in the amount of 50 thousand,” the agency’s interlocutor said.

Laritsky, a former member of the board of directors of the Novovyatsky Ski Plant, was arrested in April 2015 on charges of fraud with loans. Now, according to SPARK-Interfax, the company is owned by the German Südheimer Car Technik Fertribs Gmb.H.

The fact that the governor received the first tranche from Laritsky back in 2014 is indicated in Sudheimer’s testimony, a RIA Novosti source claims.

June 27, 11:46 The official representative of the Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, commented on Navalny’s possible participation in the Belykh case. “Everyone is responsible for themselves. What does Navalny have to do with it? Nikita Belykh is an independent person, he made his own decisions, and not under the influence of his colleagues,” he said on the Vesti FM radio station.

Markin added that all procedures for detaining and initiating criminal proceedings against the governor are legal. “This was really the third part of the bribe. And he received 150 thousand euros at this meeting,” said a representative of the Investigative Committee. “There is no political overtones. A bribe is a bribe.”

June 27, 14:18 Testimonies against Belykh were given by a former member of the board of directors of the Novovyatsky Ski Combine (NLK), Albert Laritsky, and the current co-owner of the company, Yuri Sudheimer, a source familiar with the situation told Interfax. He also noted that so far there is no material in the case confirming the official’s version that the money received was sponsorship from the Kirov region.

June 27, 18:51 18:50 Belykh gave his first interview after his arrest to Moskovsky Komsomolets columnist and human rights activist Eva Merkacheva. The governor said that in these three days he had already lost four kilograms, eats only bread and drinks only water.

“I’m fine. In general, as governor, over seven and a half years, I visited many camps in my region. And I’ll tell you this - they can’t be compared with Lefortovo. It’s not for nothing that they call it an ideal detention center,” added Belykh “I hope that I won’t stay here. I just want to see my lawyer as soon as possible. But for now I intend to read Brodsky. By the way, I also wrote poetry.”

According to him, there are two positive aspects in a pre-trial detention center - the opportunity to lose weight and be alone with yourself. “In recent years, I have always been surrounded by a large group of people. So there was not enough privacy. But the main thing is that it does not drag on. I will prove my innocence. The investigator who opened the case against me was clearly lucky,” Belykh said.

June 27, 10:28 The governor gave another interview to Zoya Svetova, a member of the Public Monitoring Commission, a journalist of the Ekho Moskvy radio station. Belykh, in particular, stated that he wrote a letter to his friend and editor-in-chief of Echo Alexei Venediktov: “I must explain what happened. After all, this is a setup.”

I’m waiting for an announced letter from Nikita Belykh from the pre-trial detention center.

— Alexey Venediktov (@aavst)

Illustration copyright RIA Novosti Image caption Belykh faces up to 15 years in prison

The head of the Kirov region, Nikita Belykh, was arrested on charges of taking a bribe. Few people in the region are now willing to judge the governor’s guilt. Nevertheless, many agree that Belykh had a poor understanding of people and could have been framed.

On June 24, the Investigative Committee reported that Belykh was caught red-handed in a Moscow restaurant. The leadership of the Investigative Committee quickly distributed a photo of the governor at a table on which stacks of 100-euro bills were laid out. The total amount of the bribe is estimated at 400 thousand euros.

According to investigators, the governor received money in several tranches from a certain businessman for patronage of the Novovyatsky Ski Combine (NLC) and Forestry Management Company enterprises, which are controlled by this businessman. According to Kirov media, the owner of the companies is Yuri Sudheimer, and previously they belonged to Albert Laritsky, who is now under arrest on charges of financial fraud.

The investigator at the trial stated that Belykh admitted that he took money for the development of Kirov. Subsequently, Novaya Gazeta wrote, with reference to a video recording of the “operational experiment,” that the funds were intended for the construction of the temple.

Some media outlets also call Belykh himself a “liberal” or “opposition governor.” He really made a path from an opposition party to the governor’s chair that is not entirely standard for a Russian head of a region. Before he became the head of the Kirov region at the end of 2008, Belykh led the Union of Right Forces for 3.5 years. He was elected party leader at age 29.

By that time, Belykh already had an impressive political career behind him. He managed to head the Perm regional branch of the Union of Right Forces, was elected as a deputy of the regional legislative assembly, and worked as deputy governor of the Perm Territory Oleg Chirkunov.

However, under the leadership of the Whites, the SPS was defeated in the 2007 Duma elections. The party leader resigned, explaining that he did not want to participate in the “Kremlin project” created on the basis of the Union of Right Forces. But a few months later, the then owner of the Kremlin, President Dmitry Medvedev, nominated him as a candidate for governor of the Kirov region.

Belykh was born and raised in Perm, graduated from a physics and mathematics school with a gold medal, and began working while still studying at the institute. Soon, when he was not yet 20, he founded a brokerage firm. Ten years later, Belykh was already the general director of the Parma investment banking group.

Biographical information about the Kirov governor indicates that he was a big fan of cigars from his youth, partly because they gave the young businessman a sense of solidity. At the beginning of this year, Belykh boasted on his social networks that he had lost more than 20 kilograms of weight in three months by giving up smoking and drinking alcohol and actively playing sports. After being detained and arrested in the case of accepting a bribe on an especially large scale, he went on a hunger strike.

* WITHThe title was changed on July 6: has been clarifiedinformationIabout the owners of the Inmedia holding.

“It is assumed that Nikita Belykh will serve his sentence with a “registration” - in the Kirov region, despite the fact that he asked to serve his sentence closer to Moscow, where his wife lives and works. However, most likely, the FSIN will not give him such an opportunity ", said the human rights activist.

At the same time, she noted that, according to the law, the FSIN will notify Belykh’s relatives and defenders about his whereabouts after he arrives in the colony.

A little earlier, the executive secretary of the Moscow Public Monitoring Committee, Ivan Melnikov, reported that Belykh was sent from the pre-trial detention center to a colony today. But he did not say where exactly. Before being sent, Belykh’s health was assessed by a pre-trial detention center doctor.

By the way, Deputy Head of the Federal Penitentiary Service Valery Maksimenko previously admitted that Belykh and ex-Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukaev, theoretically, could end up in the same maximum security colony. But in practice, as the official admitted, too much must coincide for this to happen.

It is interesting that a whole intrigue began around the choice of “place of stay behind bars”, and one of the potential options was considered the penal colony in the Sverdlovsk region, where Leonid Brezhnev’s son-in-law Yuri Churbanov was imprisoned. There were rumors that Belykh would be sent to serve his sentence in general regime colony No. 13 in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk region. Although all the colonies in the Kirov region are located not in cities, but in the outback. But many members of the Public Council of the Federal Penitentiary Service, regarding the place where the ex-governor’s sentence will be served, stated that he would definitely not be sent either to the Sverdlovsk region, or to Mordovia, or to Kolyma.

Let us remind you that the law allows you to serve your sentence at the location of the court. There are no colonies in the capital. There is one maximum security colony in the region; according to the Federal Penitentiary Service, there are no free places in it. More than 10 thousand people are serving sentences in the Kirov region. And among the penal colonies there are as many as six with a strict regime. Half of them have a reputation as “red zones”, where the administration holds power, not criminals.

The convicted former governor was charged with two counts of corruption. According to the Investigative Committee, in 2011-2012, Belykh received 200 thousand euros from businessman Albert Laritsky for “helping” to coordinate his companies’ applications for preferential lease of forest plots. A year later, according to investigators, the new owner of the same companies, Yuri Sudgaimer, repeated the “gift” of his predecessor and presented the governor with 400 thousand euros in 2014.

It must be said that the court acquitted him on the first episode, but found him guilty on the second. In addition to the eight-year prison term, the court imposed a fine of 48.2 million rubles on Belykh. The ex-governor was also disqualified from holding positions in the civil service for three years.

At the Ryazan correctional colony he will be able to make hay and receive another higher education

Ex-governor of the Kirov region Nikita Belykh arrived to serve his sentence in Ryazan. For now he is in a pre-trial detention center, but literally one of these days he will be transferred to a local maximum security colony. Belykh will, according to our information, serve out his sentence in a former prisoner of war camp, where he will be asked to make hay.

Nikita Belykh was transported early on Monday morning. Moreover, this was an obvious surprise for him: he himself did not know about the upcoming trip even on Sunday evening. He complained to the members of the Public Monitoring Committee who visited him then that the Lefortovo administration had not fulfilled a single promise - he was never given either a TV or an orthopedic mattress.

“And I’ve been sitting alone for three days now,” he remarked.

The absence of his cellmate was explained simply: three days ago, documents arrived from the court, which means Nikita Yuryevich officially changed his status from prisoner to convicted and cannot be kept with those who have not yet been sentenced. Everything else (lack of TV, mattress) is most likely caused not by objective reality, but by the dislike of the detention center staff for the ex-governor. They considered and still consider him arrogant and overly demanding.

Nikita Yuryevich, are you letting your hair grow out or is there simply no way to cut it here? - members of the Public Monitoring Committee asked Belykh, who was so overgrown that he looked like Robinson Crusoe.

There is no opportunity to get a haircut.

There really was no hairdresser in the isolation ward. Prisoners are now simply given hair clippers upon request. Usually, cellmates cut each other's hair (few people can cut their own hair, so Belykh couldn't).

In general, without a haircut, without sleeping on a good mattress, without watching a single football match on TV, Nikita Belykh set off on his journey at dawn, accompanied by a convoy. The ex-governor got to Ryazan in just (!) a few hours without transfers or delays. There was no medical escort (human rights activists were worried that he wouldn’t make it if there wasn’t a doctor with him ready to help). Well, as for the choice of place to serve the sentence, it was quite expected. Moreover, in his case, Ryazan is an ideal city. Firstly, it’s not far from Moscow. Secondly, Nikita Yuryevich had nothing against him (but he had no desire to go to Kirov, where he registered, since it was almost 1000 km from Moscow, and it would have been difficult for his wife to come to him on dates).

We don’t know which colony we will send him to from the pre-trial detention center,” says an employee of the detention center. - This will be decided by the Federal Penitentiary Service for the region. In the Ryazan region there are only three maximum security institutions - IK-2, IK-3, IK-5. But there is only one within the city limits, I think that’s where they’ll place him.

The IR in question is exemplary. The convicts do not get bored there - there is a club and its own vocal and instrumental ensemble. During the war, in its place there was a prisoner of war camp, which was disbanded in 1949, and the barracks were filled with Soviet prisoners. Since then, convicts from all over the country have served their sentences here. Belykh will be, perhaps, the most famous prisoner of this modest colony. By the way, he will be offered a choice of several industries, including sewing. Since the colony is still manufacturing hay harvesting equipment and harvesting hay, he will be able to try his hand at this craft. And in the colony there is a chance to get another higher education: study remotely at the Ryazan branch of the Moscow Academy of Economics and Law. The colony is also very sporty; hockey and football competitions are regularly held. But since Belykh has a leg injury and walks with a cane, he is unlikely to explore the local sports ground. Two other maximum security colonies are located not in Ryazan itself, but not far from it - one in the city of Skopin, the second in the village of Skopinsky district. They are not as “advanced” as IK-2, and besides, the distance from them to the regional hospital is quite decent. And initially it was discussed in the FSIN that Belykh might have to be hospitalized more than once, taking into account his ailments.