News Release
21.01.2010
Russian preliminary investigation agencies' international cooperation has been in focus of a briefing held in the Ministry of the Interior July 12.
In 2001, the MOI Investigation Committee established an international legal department, which has since become the key element coordinating Russian preliminary investigation agencies' cooperation with their counterparts abroad, the acting Chief of the Organisation and Inspection Department of the Investigation Committee of the Russian MOI Yuri Brezhnev told journalists. In fact, this interaction has involved forwarding and processing investigatory requests that do not require court's or prosecutor's sanction.
Determined to broaden and deepen the liaisons, Russian Investigation Committee's officials meet with their foreign counterparts on a regular basis. Among other things, the meetings are intended to negotiate interdepartmental documents that deal with legal proceedings and enable preliminary investigation squads to find out more about the structure, forms and methods applied to investigate certain types of offences, as well as to update each other on legislation changes and process queries within 30 days or even within 10, if requested.
To cement the business liaisons and find direct contacts among foreign partners, the Investigation Committee's officers organize working meetings, inviting law enforcers that have been accredited at foreign embassies in Russia to discuss legal aid.
Legal aspects of draft international acts and agreements are regularly revised, just as are home drafts dealing with legal assistance to criminal cases and building cooperation with international law enforcement authorities.
Russian preliminary investigation agencies cooperate with more than 50 countries. They have contractual relations with every CIS country and Baltic state.
The volume of international requests, which came from the investigatory bodies of CIS countries to be executed by the Russian preliminary investigation units, grew 15 per cent in 2004 and those we sent to CIS countries increased 3.8 per cent. Fastest-growing request exchange is with Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany and with the USA.
By joining in to write section 5 of the RF Criminal Procedural Code, which came into effect on July 1 2002 and was the first in Russia's lawmaking history to contain acts on international cooperation in criminal prosecution, the Investigation Committee's officers made a considerable step towards legal regulation of the area.
The CPC included key clauses of bilateral and multilateral contracts and established the order for working with correspondent agencies of foreign states. It also confirmed the principles for assessing and qualifying as valid evidence collected abroad and listed the basic types of legal assistance.
There has been more order and coordination in combating illicit phenomena recently. The Investigation Committee considers an average of 8,000 legal aid requests, which is 120 per cent increase on 2000 statistics.
In general, officers responsible for coordinating international cooperation efforts of the Russian preliminary investigation agencies seek to make the fight against crime more effective. Using the available contract basis has allowed to solve a number of issues associated with the return of cultural artifacts stolen and smuggled from Russia as well as to stop drug trafficking, terrorism, smuggling of arms and ammo, and investigate bank, vehicle and fuel crime.
Thus, during the first half of 2004, the Investigation Committee considered and referred to court cases of 20 individuals charged with selling and moving drugs from Tajikistan to Russia. As many as 440 kilos of heroin were seized in pursuance of the investigation.
Cooperation with law enforcers from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, including with the national security ministries of the three states and the Drug Control Agency under the President of Tajikistan, revealed additional evidence against the suspects.
A good example of the fruitful cooperation is a case against an international criminal enterprise, which comprised Russians, Columbian nationals and Brits. In May 2000, Miami customs officers discovered cocaine in a cargo shipped from Columbia to Russia. Russian, US and UK law enforcers organized a fake deal to identify six Russians who received the freight and hid it in bags with polythene granules to forward them to Great Britain later on. A total of 65 kilos of cocaine heading for Russia and West European countries were seized in the process.
Then, in Mytishchi, of the Moscow Region, the gang's base was discovered. It had special equipment to make methaqualone pills and prepare narcotics and psychographic substances hidden in incoming loads for import.
The investigators sent a legal assistance request to British police. The materials they thus obtained were used as evidence.
Russian preliminary investigation officials, in their turn, executed a request of British law enforcers that investigated a similar incident, which occurred on their territory. The materials provided by Russian militia officers were considered by Liverpool's Royal Court and their quality was highly appreciated by the judicial officials involved, which resulted in guilty verdicts for all the members of the syndicate and a total of 90 years and a half in prison for them.
In September 2004, the Moscow Regional Court sentenced Petrov, Lavrenkov, Svanidze and Babaev to 18 to 21 years in prison and gave 7-year imprisonment with five-year probation to Dolgov.
Upon the completion of the case, the UK National Crime Squad's Directors honored the most helpful officers from the Investigation Committee with special certificates, which were given to the awardees at the British Embassy in Moscow in September 2004.
The investigation and the court hearings both in Russia and the UK were widely discussed in press and on TV in both countries.
The Moscow investigation office tackled a case that involved four pictures stolen from Russian citizens: The Objectless Composition by Kandinsky, A Clock by Menkov, A Fantasy by Klyun and An Old Man in a Room purportedly by Shagal.
Investigation established the pictures had been smuggled to Switzerland. After lengthy negotiations, Swiss judicial authorities ordered handover of the pictures to the Russian partners. On October 8, 2004, Geneva hosted the handover ceremony, after which Investigation Committee officers brought the works to Russia to return them to the owners.