What the hell: who killed the bandit named Bes
A jury in Veliky Novgorod has convicted five members of Andrei Petrovsky's criminal gang. The bandits were only part of one of several structural divisions of the criminal community led by Nikolai Kravchenko, nicknamed the Devil. While the prosecution is formulating a request to the court for punishment for each of the defendants, Izvestia has collected details on the high-profile case.
The actual process
Sergei Sergeev, Sergey Zabotin, Andrey Kozlov, Andrey Orlov, Valery Rybakov were in the dock — all of them, according to investigators, are members of Andrei Petrovsky's gang, nicknamed Recha. The gang was controlled by the leader of the organized crime community of Veliky Novgorod, Nikolai Kravchenko (known among the bandits by the nickname Kolya Bes). The jury found all five guilty of two murders and banditry.
Thus, the jury found the defendants guilty of murdering the owner of the premises of the former Volna plant, Yuri Kupriyanov. A businessman was killed near a shopping center on Fedorovsky Ruchey Street when he was walking to his car with purchases. The killers rode up to him on a motorcycle and shot him with a TT pistol.
"Years later, Sergei Sergeev, nicknamed Lamprey, confessed to this crime, Kozlov (nicknamed the Wind) was driving," a police source explained. — These and other evidence were considered sufficient during the trial.
Another murder in which gang members were found guilty was the shooting of Viktor Krylov, a logger. Rybakov (nicknamed the Old One or the Fisherman) and Orlov (nicknamed the Eagle) repeatedly threatened Krylov because of his business activities, which interfered with Petrovsky's business (he also had interests in this area). But Krylov turned out to be a man of no timidity and did not want to give in.
— He was attacked in a wooded area when he, along with his son and his son's friend, went to cut wood. The car carrying Rybakov, Sergeev, Orlov and Zabotin caught up with the logger's car. The man went out to find out what the pursuers wanted, and at that moment he was shot in the face with a sawn-off shotgun. His son remembered the killer's face and identified him almost 20 years later — it was Zabotin.
The Gang's Path
According to the source, there are still many blank spots in the group's case, but new trials for other atrocities are awaiting accomplices in the near future.
"The community run by the Demon managed to take over up to 70% of the region's economy," an operational police officer who spent several years exposing the Demon's gang tells Izvestia. — We found "gray" accounting records, which indicate that they were even paid by dog breeders. They didn't care about anything.
The criminal group formed back in the 1990s around boxer athletes. One of the notable criminal figures was the international master of sports Valery Rybakov.
"He was once in the national team, but after he attacked a police officer and got a criminal record, he was kicked out of big—time sports," a law enforcement source tells Izvestia.
After his release, Rybakov headed the private security Company "Scorpion", which served as a cover for Petrovsky's group. The main character of the group was Kravchenko. In the 1980s, he worked as a driver for the director of a vegetable warehouse, Telman Mkhitaryan. The boss became a mentor for his "personal friend" and by the 1990s had turned him into a business partner. The company they created gradually took over a TV production plant, a Glass Fiber factory, a porcelain factory, a river port and numerous retail outlets.
The demon was distinguished by intolerance towards competitors. He imposed tribute on almost all enterprises of the city and the region. In the end, he decided to extort money even from a local defense company. Soon after, anti-crime operations began in the region.
Kravchenko and Petrovsky fled to Ukraine. Both were charged in absentia with multiple murders and extortion. Petrovsky managed to obtain a residence permit in Ukraine and, according to some reports, acquire citizenship. But Kravchenko failed to naturalize in Ukraine on time.
Death in jail
At the request of the Russian side, he was arrested in 2013 in Ukraine, and in January 2014 it was decided to extradite him to Russia. However, on the night of January 24, 2014, Kravchenko was found dead in the Lukyanovo pre-trial detention center in Kiev. Local law enforcement officers considered the death of the Demon to be the result of suicide. However, a source in Russian law enforcement agencies believes that Kravchenko was "helped."
— His death was beneficial to Petrovsky, who had his hands free in Ukraine at that time. The fact is that, despite the arrests of property and detentions of gang members in Russia, Bes and Petrovsky received money from assets in Russia. Petrovsky was afraid that the Devil would tell the investigation about the sources of their income and the financing would stop.
According to the source, Petrovsky still receives money from Russia and actively helps the Ukrainian Armed Forces with these funds.
Consequences of failure
During the investigation and trial, some of the accused retracted their earlier statements. In particular, Sergey Sergeev chose this position — during his interrogations, charges were based on the episode of the murder of businessman Kupriyanov. Lawyer Pavel Korniako explained to Izvestia what legal consequences the admission of guilt and the subsequent refusal of testimony entail, recalling Article 61 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
"Actively contributing to the investigation of a criminal case means that a person's testimony exposes some possible accomplices who are unknown or known to the investigation, but their criminal role has not been proven or described in insufficient detail," says Korniako.
The interlocutor of Izvestia recalled that turning himself in could reduce or reduce the punishment.
— A confession can be written only at the stage of the preliminary investigation. And, accordingly, this circumstance is also mitigating. According to the general principle (taking into account the explanations of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation), in the presence of such circumstances, the court cannot impose a maximum penalty exceeding two thirds of the maximum established by the article to mitigate the punishment.
Judicial practice and modern legal science do not consider a guilty plea as the only and main proof of guilt, the lawyer says.
— Accordingly, a person at various stages may, for various reasons, confess to committing a crime or subsequently recant such testimony.
What has been said will be used
Lawyer Korniako says that the accused has the right to refuse to confess, to admit his guilt, to turn himself in and to give his testimony.
— As a rule, any recognition is recorded by the protocol. The subsequent refusal does not deprive the judicial authorities of the right to disclose this data and apply it as evidence in terms of its consistency, reliability and the totality of its assessment with other evidence.
The lawyer recalled that Article 51 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees everyone the right not to testify against themselves or their relatives.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
