News
- 30 May 2012, 13:22
- The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation
«We cannot say that the investigation of the case of Litvinenko together with the British colleagues is successful»
About international cooperation of the Russian prosecutors, successes of joint investigations of criminal cases with foreign colleagues related to withdrawals from Russia of many and numerous billions of dollars, the Head of the the Main Department of international legal cooperation of the General Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation Sahak Karapetyan is speaking in the interview to the columnist of the Agency of "Interfax" Boris Gevorkyan.
- Mr. Sahak Albertovich, yesterday Moscow was visited by the delegation from such an exotic country like the Republic of Seychelles. What common issues do our prosecutors have the colleagues from a distant island country?
- Let me start with fact that due to the results of negotiations the General Prosecutor's office of Russia represented by its leader Yury Chayka has signed a Memorandum of understanding with colleagues from the Republic of Seychelles. As of today we have concluded interdepartmental agreements on cooperation and mutual understanding with a number of countries and territories providing preferential tax regime in carrying out financial transactions. By this time the Seychelles became the sixth such a country. These interdepartmental agreements will allow effectively struggling against transnational organized criminality, first of all in the area of money laundering. The topic is the cooperation in investigation of criminal cases of crimes connected with an illegal withdrawal from Russia of hundreds of billions of dollars starting from the years of ninetieth. In the chain of these countries I would highlight Cyprus where, according to the information we have, billions of dollars withdrawn from Russia as a result of illegal financial operations are continuing to get settled.
As of today criminal cases are under investigation, including the ones related to the former managers of the Bank of Moscow, within the framework of which it was established that together with the other countries and namely to Cyprus monetary funds were transferred which, by the opinion of investigation, were obtained by criminal way. On our request the bank accounts belonging to the involved people were arrested. Our task is not only to find and arrest these funds but also, to do everything for bringing them back to the homeland - we are talking about amounts of not a billion of dollars. Now the work is going on.
As for the rest of the countries known for their offshore zones which attract significant financial flows from our country, and with which we have signed interdepartmental agreements, I would mention Sri Lanka and Luxembourg. In the queue there are still several countries with which it is planned to sign such documents.They are the Maldives, Panama, New Zealand and a number of others.
Generally, about two years ago there were few who believed in the success of our negotiations with foreign colleagues in this group of countries. Moreover, some of our famous lawyers had extremely skeptical attitude to the possibility of cooperation with the countries of the offshore zone. Despite this, the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation has entrusted us the given issue and we began to work actively on it. And now here are the signed agreements, and new ones are approaching.
Returning to our negotiations with the delegation from the Sayshelles, we have agreed about one more very important point - on the issue of establishing of an international judicial body under the auspices of the United Nations for struggling against sea piracy. Moreover, the Attorney General of the Seychelles Roni Govindenom not only supported the initiative of the Prosecutor General of Russia about the establishment of an international judicial mechanism of the criminal prosecution of pirates but also expressed the readiness to provide its territory for the judicial authority in the case of its creation under the auspices of the United Nations. In addition, the Seychelles are ready to conclude an agreement with the Russian Federation Memorandum on the placement on their territory of Russian forces and means necessary for the fight against see piracy.
- Mr. Sahak Albertovich, recently Moscow has been visited by the Minister of justice - Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder who has conducted negotiations with your department. We have already seen a short message about this meeting. May be you will disclose some details?
- I can say that these talks were held in a very constructive way, in the atmosphere of the intention of the sides to move towards each other, to make the joint work on struggling against organized criminality more effective. Our Prosecutor General in the first instance paid the attention of the American partners on the difficulties and barriers in the bilateral cooperation associated with the lack of an extradition treaty, and offered to undertake certain steps to find a mutually acceptable decision on the issue. The Minister of justice of the USA has been sent an official proposal to establish a working group for consideration of the problematic issues of bilateral international legal cooperation. Such a group has already been created. In future it is planned to conclude an interdepartmental agreement which will allow carrying out this work more actively. The American side has positively reacted to this proposal and we are expecting a response to our initiative in the nearest future. I hope that such an agreement will be signed.
As a positive example of cooperation between our countries in the sphere of extradition of criminals I would say that recently the US authorities have deported several citizens of the Russian Federation who tried to hide in the United States from Russian justice. And since there is no extradition Treaty between us, these persons were not extradited but they were deported. By and large, in this case it is important for us not the technology but the fact that these people have committed serious crimes in our country and tried to find refuge in the USA and avoid punishment. As we can see, they did not succeed.
I will also add that in the course of negotiations with Eric Holder we have also touched upon the theme of convictions in the USA of two citizens of Russia - a businessman Viktor Bout and a pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko whose cases have caused a wide resonance.Simultaneously, it was raised a question about improvement of detention conditions and of possible transfer of these citizens from the USA to the Russian Federation for the further serving of punishment. There is a legal basis for this, that is an agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons between Russia and the USA. The American Attorney General assured us that the corresponding instructions on these issues will be given by him as a matter of urgency.
- You have recently visited Israel as a head of the delegation of the General Prosecutor's office of Russia. Can you tell us about this visit, what is it significant with?
"In general, this is the first for a long time such a visit of this kind of delegation. We have had a very good dialogue with the heads of the Prosecutor's office, Ministry of justice and police of the State of Israel. The fact is that more than 50 of our compatriots have settled in this country, the transference of which is endeavoured by the Russian Prosecutor's office. With Israel, as well as with the United States, we have no extradition Treaty - the Israeli side refers to the fact that Russia's Constitution forbids the extradition of its own citizens, and accordingly, other ways must be looked for. Between us it has been reached an agreement on the fact that Israel will be ready to give their citizens in the unilateral order for the criminal prosecution under the guarantees of the Russian General Prosecutor's office, but with their subsequent transfer back to Israel for serving of their punishments in the form of deprivation of liberty inflicted by the Russian court. These guarantees under the laws of Israel are mandatory conditions for a positive consideration of requests of the General Prosecutor’s office of the Russian Federation on extradition. The project of such a bilateral normative act has been already prepared. We do hope that in the nearest future we will be able to conduct interdepartmental coordination due to the act.
And moreover, in the course of the talks the sides agreed to establish a joint working group to review the problematic issues on extradition. On the whole at the meeting with the Prosecutor General Мoshe Lador, the Israeli side showed genuine interest to our initiatives, and I think by the end of the year there will be signed an interdepartmental agreement on cooperation between our two prosecutor’s offices.
"By the way, about the settled. Whether this group is entered by the Russians left for Israel and who are passing under the Yukos case?”
"Yes, one of the former managers of the oil company Leonid Nevzlin and a number of other offenders of this case are among them.”
- As it is well known, one of those who is for a long time wanted by the Russian law-enforcement authorities - an entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky who nowadays resides in London. Is there any news on this?
- At the present time in Russia, several criminal cases against this citizen are under investigation. We have well established cooperation and great works which are being done on mutual legal assistance with a number of European countries, particularly with France and Switzerland, and with some non-European countries. We face understanding in the performance of our requests in the sphere of legal assistance from our colleagues in these countries. Moreover, some investigative actions are conducted with participation of our investigative officers.
A joint investigation goes on consequentially and vigorously, and all this goes to some logical conclusion on the principle of inevitability of punishment: if a person has committed a crime, he shall receive a deserved punishment, and the means stolen by him should be returned to the owner." In this regard, measures to arrest the funds and properties of an offender are undertaken.
"What can you tell us about the high-profile case related to poisoning of a former FSB officer of Russia Alexander Litvinenko? Has it all died out?
- Unfortunately, we are not at that position to talk about the successful investigation of this case jointly with the British colleagues. All those requests that were sent to us from the Great Britain we have performed in a few days, we have done everything that depends on us, received our colleagues from London, helped to fulfil a large volume of work. But then it started a some kind of mess with the execution of our requests for legal assistance in the criminal case which has been investigated on the same episode in our country. Actually none of them have been considered and executed. Moreover, with unknown for us reasons, the case about the death of Litvinenko has been sent to the London court - without completion of the investigation or without identification of the culprits what is not done in any country of the world. There were attempts to invite the Russian representatives for participation in this process but, because there are many unclear issues and points in there, for the time being we look at all this from aside.
- Mr. Sahak Albertovich, you have mentioned about "the case of the Bank of Moscow”. In mass media there were messages, that one of the prosecutors of Switzerland has recently visited Moscow and conducted negotiations on the issues of cooperation on a number of high-profile criminal cases, and particularly in relation with the former top managers of the Bank of Moscow. How would you comment this information?
- Yes, a representative of the Prosecutor's office of Switzerland was in Moscow. In general, with our Swiss colleagues we have very well developed professional relationships. Including in terms of fulfillment by them of our requests and by us of theirs, for example the same "case of the Bank of Moscow”. We have been reported that due to the case there was a sequestration of a significant amount of money stored in Swiss banks. And we have been doing everything to keep on the arrest with the purpose of subsequent achievement of returning of the money to Russia. In addition, the Swiss Prosecutor shared with us the information about new criminal cases which have been instituted against Russian citizens in Switzerland. It is mainly about the crimes of financial and economic sphere in which significant amounts are involved. It became known for us that as per materials of the financial intelligence unit it was initiated a new criminal case against Russian citizens and companies with a quite considerable amounts of money laundering. According to our information, there is another criminal case at the approach which relates to other Russian citizens, and in the nearest future we are to receive from Switzerland requests for legal assistance on these cases. Of course, in the interests of the investigation, it is still too early for announcing of any name.
- Can we assume Switzerland as a leader among the European countries with which the Russian Prosecutor's office has the best relationship?
- We have established effective cooperation with many European countries. With such countries as Switzerland and Cyprus we have larger scope of work on specific criminal cases, since the funds that illegally withdrawn from Russia have been deposited there. At the same time with some of the other countries of the European Union we have very good relations in the field of extradition. And the absolute leader in here is Spain with which we have excellent relations. The situation with the extradition from France and Germany is not bad too.
- Can you confirm the information that the Spanish authorities have transferred to the General Prosecutor's office of Russia the materials of the criminal case against businessmen Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov suspected in money laundering?
- Yes, the materials of the case in accordance with the international and our legislation, we have transferred for further investigation to the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The rest of the questions do not refer to us.
The Prosecutor General's Office
of the Russian Federation
The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation
30 May 2012, 13:22
We offer to your attention an interview with the head of the Main Department of international legal cooperation of the General Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation Sahak Karapetyan to the information agency «Interfax»
«We cannot say that the investigation of the case of Litvinenko together with the British colleagues is successful»
About international cooperation of the Russian prosecutors, successes of joint investigations of criminal cases with foreign colleagues related to withdrawals from Russia of many and numerous billions of dollars, the Head of the the Main Department of international legal cooperation of the General Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation Sahak Karapetyan is speaking in the interview to the columnist of the Agency of "Interfax" Boris Gevorkyan.
- Mr. Sahak Albertovich, yesterday Moscow was visited by the delegation from such an exotic country like the Republic of Seychelles. What common issues do our prosecutors have the colleagues from a distant island country?
- Let me start with fact that due to the results of negotiations the General Prosecutor's office of Russia represented by its leader Yury Chayka has signed a Memorandum of understanding with colleagues from the Republic of Seychelles. As of today we have concluded interdepartmental agreements on cooperation and mutual understanding with a number of countries and territories providing preferential tax regime in carrying out financial transactions. By this time the Seychelles became the sixth such a country. These interdepartmental agreements will allow effectively struggling against transnational organized criminality, first of all in the area of money laundering. The topic is the cooperation in investigation of criminal cases of crimes connected with an illegal withdrawal from Russia of hundreds of billions of dollars starting from the years of ninetieth. In the chain of these countries I would highlight Cyprus where, according to the information we have, billions of dollars withdrawn from Russia as a result of illegal financial operations are continuing to get settled.
As of today criminal cases are under investigation, including the ones related to the former managers of the Bank of Moscow, within the framework of which it was established that together with the other countries and namely to Cyprus monetary funds were transferred which, by the opinion of investigation, were obtained by criminal way. On our request the bank accounts belonging to the involved people were arrested. Our task is not only to find and arrest these funds but also, to do everything for bringing them back to the homeland - we are talking about amounts of not a billion of dollars. Now the work is going on.
As for the rest of the countries known for their offshore zones which attract significant financial flows from our country, and with which we have signed interdepartmental agreements, I would mention Sri Lanka and Luxembourg. In the queue there are still several countries with which it is planned to sign such documents.They are the Maldives, Panama, New Zealand and a number of others.
Generally, about two years ago there were few who believed in the success of our negotiations with foreign colleagues in this group of countries. Moreover, some of our famous lawyers had extremely skeptical attitude to the possibility of cooperation with the countries of the offshore zone. Despite this, the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation has entrusted us the given issue and we began to work actively on it. And now here are the signed agreements, and new ones are approaching.
Returning to our negotiations with the delegation from the Sayshelles, we have agreed about one more very important point - on the issue of establishing of an international judicial body under the auspices of the United Nations for struggling against sea piracy. Moreover, the Attorney General of the Seychelles Roni Govindenom not only supported the initiative of the Prosecutor General of Russia about the establishment of an international judicial mechanism of the criminal prosecution of pirates but also expressed the readiness to provide its territory for the judicial authority in the case of its creation under the auspices of the United Nations. In addition, the Seychelles are ready to conclude an agreement with the Russian Federation Memorandum on the placement on their territory of Russian forces and means necessary for the fight against see piracy.
- Mr. Sahak Albertovich, recently Moscow has been visited by the Minister of justice - Attorney General of the United States Eric Holder who has conducted negotiations with your department. We have already seen a short message about this meeting. May be you will disclose some details?
- I can say that these talks were held in a very constructive way, in the atmosphere of the intention of the sides to move towards each other, to make the joint work on struggling against organized criminality more effective. Our Prosecutor General in the first instance paid the attention of the American partners on the difficulties and barriers in the bilateral cooperation associated with the lack of an extradition treaty, and offered to undertake certain steps to find a mutually acceptable decision on the issue. The Minister of justice of the USA has been sent an official proposal to establish a working group for consideration of the problematic issues of bilateral international legal cooperation. Such a group has already been created. In future it is planned to conclude an interdepartmental agreement which will allow carrying out this work more actively. The American side has positively reacted to this proposal and we are expecting a response to our initiative in the nearest future. I hope that such an agreement will be signed.
As a positive example of cooperation between our countries in the sphere of extradition of criminals I would say that recently the US authorities have deported several citizens of the Russian Federation who tried to hide in the United States from Russian justice. And since there is no extradition Treaty between us, these persons were not extradited but they were deported. By and large, in this case it is important for us not the technology but the fact that these people have committed serious crimes in our country and tried to find refuge in the USA and avoid punishment. As we can see, they did not succeed.
I will also add that in the course of negotiations with Eric Holder we have also touched upon the theme of convictions in the USA of two citizens of Russia - a businessman Viktor Bout and a pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko whose cases have caused a wide resonance.Simultaneously, it was raised a question about improvement of detention conditions and of possible transfer of these citizens from the USA to the Russian Federation for the further serving of punishment. There is a legal basis for this, that is an agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons between Russia and the USA. The American Attorney General assured us that the corresponding instructions on these issues will be given by him as a matter of urgency.
- You have recently visited Israel as a head of the delegation of the General Prosecutor's office of Russia. Can you tell us about this visit, what is it significant with?
"In general, this is the first for a long time such a visit of this kind of delegation. We have had a very good dialogue with the heads of the Prosecutor's office, Ministry of justice and police of the State of Israel. The fact is that more than 50 of our compatriots have settled in this country, the transference of which is endeavoured by the Russian Prosecutor's office. With Israel, as well as with the United States, we have no extradition Treaty - the Israeli side refers to the fact that Russia's Constitution forbids the extradition of its own citizens, and accordingly, other ways must be looked for. Between us it has been reached an agreement on the fact that Israel will be ready to give their citizens in the unilateral order for the criminal prosecution under the guarantees of the Russian General Prosecutor's office, but with their subsequent transfer back to Israel for serving of their punishments in the form of deprivation of liberty inflicted by the Russian court. These guarantees under the laws of Israel are mandatory conditions for a positive consideration of requests of the General Prosecutor’s office of the Russian Federation on extradition. The project of such a bilateral normative act has been already prepared. We do hope that in the nearest future we will be able to conduct interdepartmental coordination due to the act.
And moreover, in the course of the talks the sides agreed to establish a joint working group to review the problematic issues on extradition. On the whole at the meeting with the Prosecutor General Мoshe Lador, the Israeli side showed genuine interest to our initiatives, and I think by the end of the year there will be signed an interdepartmental agreement on cooperation between our two prosecutor’s offices.
"By the way, about the settled. Whether this group is entered by the Russians left for Israel and who are passing under the Yukos case?”
"Yes, one of the former managers of the oil company Leonid Nevzlin and a number of other offenders of this case are among them.”
- As it is well known, one of those who is for a long time wanted by the Russian law-enforcement authorities - an entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky who nowadays resides in London. Is there any news on this?
- At the present time in Russia, several criminal cases against this citizen are under investigation. We have well established cooperation and great works which are being done on mutual legal assistance with a number of European countries, particularly with France and Switzerland, and with some non-European countries. We face understanding in the performance of our requests in the sphere of legal assistance from our colleagues in these countries. Moreover, some investigative actions are conducted with participation of our investigative officers.
A joint investigation goes on consequentially and vigorously, and all this goes to some logical conclusion on the principle of inevitability of punishment: if a person has committed a crime, he shall receive a deserved punishment, and the means stolen by him should be returned to the owner." In this regard, measures to arrest the funds and properties of an offender are undertaken.
"What can you tell us about the high-profile case related to poisoning of a former FSB officer of Russia Alexander Litvinenko? Has it all died out?
- Unfortunately, we are not at that position to talk about the successful investigation of this case jointly with the British colleagues. All those requests that were sent to us from the Great Britain we have performed in a few days, we have done everything that depends on us, received our colleagues from London, helped to fulfil a large volume of work. But then it started a some kind of mess with the execution of our requests for legal assistance in the criminal case which has been investigated on the same episode in our country. Actually none of them have been considered and executed. Moreover, with unknown for us reasons, the case about the death of Litvinenko has been sent to the London court - without completion of the investigation or without identification of the culprits what is not done in any country of the world. There were attempts to invite the Russian representatives for participation in this process but, because there are many unclear issues and points in there, for the time being we look at all this from aside.
- Mr. Sahak Albertovich, you have mentioned about "the case of the Bank of Moscow”. In mass media there were messages, that one of the prosecutors of Switzerland has recently visited Moscow and conducted negotiations on the issues of cooperation on a number of high-profile criminal cases, and particularly in relation with the former top managers of the Bank of Moscow. How would you comment this information?
- Yes, a representative of the Prosecutor's office of Switzerland was in Moscow. In general, with our Swiss colleagues we have very well developed professional relationships. Including in terms of fulfillment by them of our requests and by us of theirs, for example the same "case of the Bank of Moscow”. We have been reported that due to the case there was a sequestration of a significant amount of money stored in Swiss banks. And we have been doing everything to keep on the arrest with the purpose of subsequent achievement of returning of the money to Russia. In addition, the Swiss Prosecutor shared with us the information about new criminal cases which have been instituted against Russian citizens in Switzerland. It is mainly about the crimes of financial and economic sphere in which significant amounts are involved. It became known for us that as per materials of the financial intelligence unit it was initiated a new criminal case against Russian citizens and companies with a quite considerable amounts of money laundering. According to our information, there is another criminal case at the approach which relates to other Russian citizens, and in the nearest future we are to receive from Switzerland requests for legal assistance on these cases. Of course, in the interests of the investigation, it is still too early for announcing of any name.
- Can we assume Switzerland as a leader among the European countries with which the Russian Prosecutor's office has the best relationship?
- We have established effective cooperation with many European countries. With such countries as Switzerland and Cyprus we have larger scope of work on specific criminal cases, since the funds that illegally withdrawn from Russia have been deposited there. At the same time with some of the other countries of the European Union we have very good relations in the field of extradition. And the absolute leader in here is Spain with which we have excellent relations. The situation with the extradition from France and Germany is not bad too.
- Can you confirm the information that the Spanish authorities have transferred to the General Prosecutor's office of Russia the materials of the criminal case against businessmen Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov suspected in money laundering?
- Yes, the materials of the case in accordance with the international and our legislation, we have transferred for further investigation to the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The rest of the questions do not refer to us.
