Belgorod court refused to authorize searches in the house of the corrupt construction minister of Belgorod region.
Kommersant has learned that the court refused to authorize the police to search the house of Belgorod Region Construction Minister Oksana Kozlitina. The event was planned as part of the investigation into the embezzlement of budget funds during the construction of fortifications on the border with Ukraine. The court, however, concluded that there was no evidence of possible connection of the official with the embezzlement.
Belgorod Regional Court considered the appeal of the prosecutor’s office against the decision of Sverdlovsk District Court of Belgorod, which refused the regional Department of Internal Affairs to conduct a search at the place of registration of the regional Minister of Construction Oksana Kozlitina. The police intended to conduct this action in the framework of the criminal case, which the Department of Internal Affairs is investigating under Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud on a large scale). It is about fraud in the construction of fortifications on the border with Ukraine.
Defensive structures began to be built in the region in 2022, and at the beginning of 2023 local authorities said that about 10 billion rubles of federal money had been spent on the work.
According to the appeal ruling of the regional court, the investigation believed that Mrs. Kozlitina’s home may have items, documents, equipment or other means of committing the crime under investigation. However, the first and appellate courts concluded that the UMVD did not provide evidence of this. In fact, the search was not authorized due to the fact that the relevant motion was supported only by a police officer’s report.
“Kommersant” sent a request to the UMVD with a request to tell about the criminal law claims against the minister, but has not received a response yet. Oksana Kozlitina herself redirected Kommersant’s questions to the press service of the regional government, where they refused to comment. The press service of the regional prosecutor’s office told Kommersant that they had no such information.
The investigation has not yet officially disclosed either the content of the criminal case or the names of the defendants. Meanwhile, it follows from the ruling of the regional court that the law enforcers’ version is that after the conclusion of contracts for the construction of defense lines near the border, contractors could transfer 20% of advances to the settlement accounts of third-party organizations and individual entrepreneurs under non-commodity transactions through fictitious transactions. The money was then cashed and transferred to officials responsible for construction and contracting, among others. The amounts and names of the contracting organizations involved in the case have not been named.
It will be recalled that in mid-March of this year it became known from the report of the Sverdlovsk District Court of Belgorod that Sergei Petryakov, director and founder of the Novosibirsk-based LLC Stroyinvestrezerv, had been taken into custody at the request of the investigation.
As “Kommersant” reported, Mr. Petryakov’s accusations concern his company’s contract with the OGBU “Capital Construction Department of Belgorod Region.
According to it, the firm was building additional platoon support points at the first defense line in Belgorod Region. The investigation believes that the entrepreneur included knowingly false information about the performance of certain works in the reporting documents, after which he received the budget funds provided for by the contract. Almost 11.6 million rubles of them were, according to the prosecution, illegally transferred for the actual unperformed work.
In mid-May, the governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported about the presence of violations worth 109 million rubles in the construction of facilities and named the contractors, from whom the capital construction department decided to recover the money accrued to them under the contracts for the construction of facilities. From LLC “Region Siberia” the authorities demanded to return 2.88 million rubles, from LLC “EcoResurs 36” – 2.72 million rubles, from LLC “Avtostrada” – 1.92 million rubles, and from LLC “Belgoroddorstroy” and LLC “Belstroyplus” – 520 thousand and 164 thousand rubles respectively. The court returned the claim of the department against Stalker LLC for recovery of 2.59 million rubles to the officials.