Defendants in Chubais property theft case eased restraint

The Moscow Khamovniki Court has lifted the ban on certain actions of the defendants in the case of the theft of property worth 70 million rubles from the former general director of the Rosnano company Anatoly Chubais. On this subject informed TASS in reference to the lawyer for one of the defendants, Vyacheslav Makarov.
The court took into account the defendants’ state of health, marital status, as well as their behavior in court, and changed their preventive measure to a written undertaking not to leave, Makarov said.
A criminal case for theft of property at the request of Chubais was initiated in 2017. The main implicated in the case is the former associate of Rosnano’s ex-boss, SFO Concept boss Ilya Suchkov. Chubais accused the businessman of extortion and defamation.
SFO Concept built a house for Chubais in Peredelka, from where, as the former head of Rosnano said, property was stolen. Initially, the amount of damage was estimated at 3 billion rubles, then it decreased to 70 million.
The type of property in question is not specified. In August 2021, the court sent the case back to the prosecution with indicating that in the documents “the stolen property is indicated impersonally, it cannot be identified”.
Ilya Suchkov is charged with two counts of attempted fraud on a particularly large scale and theft on a particularly large scale. Three other defendants in the case – former federal party political council member Parnassus Musa Sadaev, security guard Anton Polyakov and Argus private security company director Alexei Ulyakhin – are only charged with theft.
The defendants pleaded not guilty. According to them words the property is owned by a Swiss company, which Chubais registered and transferred to his former business partner Suchkov.
In December 2020, Anatoly Chubais left of head of Rosnano and was appointed special representative of the President of Russia for relations with international organizations. In March 2022, he leaves this position and leaves the country. Bloomberg said the reason for the move was disagreement with Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Chubais flew in a private plane to Turkey and later to Italy, where he is said to have possessions, informed TASS, citing a source close to him. Later representative of Chubais refuted Tass the existence of a private jet and real estate in Europe and reported that Chubais in Israel “discussed the possibility of cooperation with a number of universities”. At the same time, as RIA Novosti wrote, the ex-head of Rosnano voluntarily left the board of directors of AFK Sistema and its holding company Elektrozavod.
Soon the security forces started looking his accounts in European banks, and the new boss of Rosnano asked to check the works of the company for the period under Chubais. By the end of 2021, the multibillion-dollar state corporation was on the brink of bankruptcy, and the government even discussed its liquidation.
In early June 2022, TASS, citing a law enforcement source, reported that law enforcement officers were verifying Chubais’ involvement in corruption, “interviewing possible witnesses and studying documentation received before checking for signs of a crime”. There has been no official announcement regarding the alleged audit.
At the same time, Kommersant, citing a source writing that the former special representative of the President of Russia will step down as co-chairman of the Association for the Development of Renewable Energy (ARVE). A few days later it became known that instead of Chubais, the founder of the Renova group, Viktor Vekselberg, was appointed to this post.
Later Chubais himself explain his resignation from of co-president of the ARVE with the will to protect “green energy” in Russia. He said he expected an “attack” on the country’s renewable energy sources.
At the end of January, lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky informed in his telegram channel that he met Anatoly Chubais with his wife Avdotya Smirnova at Tel Aviv airport, noting that the ex-Rosnano chief “is flying to Cyprus with an Israeli passport”.