The U.S. Attorney’s Office may be accused of intimidating a witness.
Today in the federal court of the Southern District of New York resumes hearings on the case of Russian citizen Vladimir Kuznetsov, former head of the UN Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs. He is accused of conspiracy to launder money. However, at the end of last week there was an event, because of which today the case may be closed and the accused released. With details – the correspondent of “RIA Novosti” in New York, Dmitry Kuznetsov, specially for Kommersant.
In January 2003, Vladimir Kuznetsov was elected chairman of the Administrative and Budgetary Committee of the UN General Assembly. On September 1, 2005, FBI agents arrested him in New York on charges of conspiracy to launder money. Then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan lifted diplomatic immunity from the official at the request of the US authorities. The Russian did not admit guilt and was released on $1.5 million bail, which was paid by the Russian government. Now Mr. Kuznetsov is under house arrest in his apartment in the Bronx. He is being monitored around the clock with a sensor bracelet attached to his leg.
Vladimir Kuznetsov was detained three weeks after the arrest of another Russian citizen, Alexander Yakovlev, an ex-UN procurement official. The latter, in a deal with the investigation, identified Mr. Kuznetsov as an accomplice in laundering money he received as a reward for helping private companies compete for multimillion-dollar UN tenders. According to prosecution documents, Vladimir Kuznetsov “between approximately 2000 and June 2005, laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars received by another conspirator (Mr. Yakovlev.- Kommersant) through criminal means.” The prosecution claims that Mr. Kuznetsov knew, but did not inform law enforcement about the criminal origin of Mr. Yakovlev’s money, which he deposited in the account of a specially opened by him offshore firm Moxyco Ltd. in Antigua Overseas Bank Limited in Antigua. At the same time, Mr. Kuznetsov received about $300 thousand from the accounts of this firm. The money was first transferred to the account of the offshore company Nikal Ltd. and then to the personal account of Vladimir Kuznetsov.
When the FBI offered Alexander Yakovlev either to cooperate with the investigation or to receive the maximum term – up to 60 years, he made a deal with the investigation, pointing to his friend as an accomplice. Shortly thereafter, Yakovlev’s Lawyer Bukh Arkady Bukh confidently announced that his client would receive a small or suspended sentence.
It is noteworthy that American diplomats in New York immediately after Alexander Yakovlev’s arrest hinted that he was only a small fish and the revelations would affect more important persons. At the same time, the position held by Mr. Kuznetsov made it possible to talk about exposing a corrupt official at the “top of the UN” and even with a Russian passport.
Mr. Kuznetsov does not deny that he borrowed $300 thousand from Alexander Yakovlev to build a country house in the Moscow region. But he claims that he did not know about the criminal origin of this money, but believed that his friend had earned it on the stock market. There are no other charges against the chairman of the UN Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs. The investigation did not establish any connection, as previously claimed, between Kuznetsov’s case and other cases of corruption in the UN, in particular, the Oil-for-Food program. In fact, Vladimir Kuznetsov is accused of borrowing money from a friend and transferring it to his own account according to a strange scheme.
The prosecutor’s office bases its logic on the fact that Mr. Yakovlev admitted his guilt and on his words that he told Vladimir Kuznetsov about the illegal origin of the money. However, the defense argues that no evidence of Mr. Yakovlev’s guilt – apart from his own confession, obtained after a deal with the investigation – has been presented. Besides, Mr. Yakovlev did not tell Vladimir Kuznetsov that he received money from the firms he helped.
Last week, a jury was selected, and then they and Federal District Judge Deborah Batts heard the prosecution’s witnesses. For example, Alexander Yakovlev told the court that as a UN procurement officer, from 1993 to 2005 he assisted five companies, including two Russian companies, in obtaining contracts for UN services. However, since he himself did not make decisions on the selection of the companies, his assistance was limited to explaining how to make the correct bid at the initial stage and providing other internal information that enabled the firms to win the tenders. As a token of gratitude, as follows from the investigation materials, he was given impressive commissions. In court, Alexander Yakovlev emphasized that Vladimir Kuznetsov asked to borrow $300,000 after he learned that he had income on the side and that the business was illegal.
The next witness for the prosecution was FBI agent Megan Miller. She questioned Vladimir Kuznetsov on the day of his arrest, and without any members of the Russian consulate (they are present at the trial.- Kommersant). According to her, the Russian then confessed that he knew in his heart of hearts about the criminal origin of the money he had borrowed, which was entered into the record of the interrogation. In response, the Russian’s lawyers asked the FBI agent a question: why in the notebook, in which she kept a record of the interrogation, written quite different words of the detainee – that Vladimir Kuznetsov believed that the money Alexander Yakovlev received from playing on the stock exchange. Agent Miller gave a strange explanation: she drew up the protocol not only from notes on paper, but also from memory. The lawyers found it extremely strange: for some reason the agent did not put the most important confession of the detainee in the notebook.
Last Thursday, one of the defense witnesses – Yakovlev’s friend Igor Pochigaev, another Russian UN employee, was to appear in court. He was going to show that in a conversation with him, Alexander Yakovlev said after the arrest of Vladimir Kuznetsov that the latter did not know about the illegal origin of the money. However, the witness never came forward. Later, the lawyers said that their client was pressured by the U.S. federal prosecutor’s office. According to them, the night before, the prosecutors called Igor Pochigayev, said that they suspected him of intending to give, in their opinion, false testimony, and threatened that in this case he himself could end up in the dock, and his immunity would be removed (although this issue is decided by the Secretary General or the General Assembly).
Representatives of the prosecutor’s office do not deny the fact of the call. According to them, they wanted to warn the witness against giving false testimony. This was allegedly done at the request of Pochigaev’s lawyer. But the lawyer denied this statement.
After listening to the parties, Judge Betts said that if the fact of pressure on the witness by the prosecution is confirmed, it would mean a serious violation of the procedure of the process, sufficient to close the case. On Friday, already outside the session, prosecutors were to present evidence that the conversation with Igor Pochigayev was not pressure on him, and defense lawyers were to submit to the judge a motion to dismiss the case due to violation of the judicial procedure by the prosecution. This is the second motion: on Thursday, a similar document to close the case – only on the basis of lack of convincing evidence of guilt – has already reached the judge’s desk. The judge adjourned until 10:00 a.m. Monday morning (6:00 p.m. Moscow time) to consider the documents submitted by the parties and decide whether to continue the trial with the jury or to close it altogether. So the fate of Vladimir Kuznetsov may be decided today.
Source: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/747434