Will go to parliament until the court verdict
Committee of Inquiry Alexander Bastrykin has launched criminal proceedings against Deputy Valery Rashkin, who is being investigated for illegal lottery hunting. No interrogations or searches have been carried out against the communist so far. He plans to leave the hospital where he underwent the planned eye surgery on December 3 and start working at the State Duma.
Photo: Gennady Cherkasov
Criminal proceedings against a representative of the State Duma may be initiated only with the consent of the State Duma itself. To obtain it, the Attorney General must turn to the deputies with a proposal and the majority of the Chamber must vote “for”. One week ago, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov received a sanction from the State Duma to initiate criminal proceedings against Valery Rashkin (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) under Article 258 of the Criminal Code (“Illegal Hunting”) and secondly to bring him to administrative responsibility for refusing a medical examination. state of intoxication and finally to carry out inspections in the Member's residential, non-residential and office premises and to apply preventive measures in the form of a ban on certain events.
The head of the committee of inquiry Alexander Bastrykin informs about the official website of the committee of inquiry after receiving the decision of the State Duma to waive the immunity of the Prosecutor General, he complied with the law. The investigation will, of course, be led by lower-level investigators.
Valery Rashkin himself spent this week in the hospital, where he went for a planned ophthalmological operation – which took place on Monday. He must be released on December 3, “MK” confirmed in the Communist Party's Moscow City Committee. Will the MP appear in his office in the building on Okhotny Ryad immediately, or at least next week? After such complex operations, a rehabilitation period of at least a few days is set, “although Valery Fedorovich often neglected doctors' recommendations in this sense and went to work, although he was not very healthy,” Nikolai Gerashchenko, head of the Moscow City Communist Party's Moscow City Council. MK. “We have another operation ahead of us,” explained Mukhamed Bidzhev, a lawyer on the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. persons, the penalty is a fine of 500 thousand to 1 million rubles or imprisonment for a definite period. 3 to 5 years). Mr Bidzhev said there were no official documents to confirm this, and Mr Gerashchenko added that he was “still silent” about the administrative case.
Information about the “Rashkin case” on the committee of inquiry's website (illustrated by a photo of a disheveled and confused MP after a hunt at the place of arrest on the night of October 28) says that “necessary investigations” are already “underway”. However, if it takes place, without the participation of a deputy. Nothing is known about the summons to the interrogation. And what exactly (apartment, garage, barn, office in the State Duma or the Moscow City Conservatory, reception reception room) and for what purpose the law enforcement officers want to search – “Mr. Bidzhev said. According to him, the choice of preventive measures is also not clear. The lawyer believes that “there is no corpus delicti in Rashkin's actions” because he did not intend to poach.
As regards precautionary measures, a ban on certain conduct can only be imposed by a court at the request of the inquiry. You can choose one or more acts from the list proposed by the Criminal Procedure Code: it contains a ban on leaving the house at certain times of the day, a ban on visiting certain events or places, communicating with certain people, keeping correspondence, using the internet or driving a car. It is difficult to say why a measure similar to house arrest is needed in this case and how it will be compatible with parliamentary activities.
In addition, Mr Rashkin will remain a Member throughout the investigation and trial and will lose his mandate under the Law on the Status of Senator of the Russian Federation and a Member of the State Duma only if the guilty verdict becomes final. Although it turns out that the punishment is not related to imprisonment …
Sergei Obukhov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) told the Ministry of Culture that after the call of Gennady Zyuganova members of the party released a few days ago (criminalizes Rashkin, as well as several others communists, compared to the “witch hunt” in the United States during McCarthy) “signatures in support of Valery Rashkin are collected in Moscow, Saratov and other regions.”