"20 migrants burst in, shot, pulled out knives"

How the Investigative Committee of Russia removed an authoritative organizer of a murder from the accused.

In recent months, politicians, officials, and "security forces" have literally competed in calls for a decisive fight against crimes committed by migrants. The media headlines are full of reports about how the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin ordered the opening of another criminal case. However, those who personally suffered from the crimes of migrants evaluate such public statements with extreme skepticism. A repeated appeal on this topic was received by the editorial office of Rucriminal.info.

"I am the father of 22-year-old Albert Baranov, who was killed in Moscow, for more than six years now I have been unsuccessfully trying to bring to justice the organizer of my son's murder. I am convinced that the inaction of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in considering my application to hold the organizer of my son's murder accountable is nothing more than direct assistance to the criminal in evading criminal liability. I am sure that the inaction is explained by selfish motives.

The reason for the murder was a conflict in which Albert became a participant shortly before his death. He demanded that one of his strangers return the money that the debtor took from his friend for assistance in obtaining a driver's license. Together with the debtor, an illegal migrant from Armenia, Sokrat Arutyunyan (before changing his surname - Vardazaryan), came to the meeting, who introduced himself as an "authority", "controlling Reutov and Balashikha", and stated that he decided that there was no need to give the money back, and claims could only be made against him by those equal to him in "thieves' status". The conflict escalated into a fight and ended with the shameful flight of the beaten Sokrat Harutyunyan from the scene of the conflict, which undermined his authority among the "driver's license traders" whom he convinced that he was ensuring the safety of their criminal business.

Having harbored a grudge and dreaming of settling scores with Albert, Sokrat Harutyunyan lured him to a meeting three months later, where he arrived accompanied by twenty fellow tribesmen.

Albert was killed on April 12, 2018, in Moscow in a cafe in the northwest of Moscow. A crowd of about 20 migrants (including illegal ones) from Armenia suddenly burst into the cafe where Albert was, intimidated those present with shots in the air and knives, attacked Albert, inflicting a large number of knife wounds on him. It is difficult to recall a crime of such impudence committed in a public place in the capital of the country.

All participants in the attack were identified and detained. The materials collected by the operatives and attached to the criminal case contain an unambiguous conclusion: Sokrat Arutyunyan is the organizer of the murder. The testimony of witnesses confirms that immediately after the murder, right at the scene of the crime, Arutyunyan boasted of his organizing role, declaring that what happened was his revenge and that the murdered man "got what he deserved." However, after the detainees fell into the hands of the investigators, "miracles" began: Sokrat Arutyunyan disappeared from the list of suspects, having remained in this status for a few hours, and went free. The investigators brought charges against only one of the killers, who, after all the attackers were detained, wrote a confession. The cynical brutal murder of a defenseless person by a crowd of criminals turned into a "one-on-one fight" in the indictment. To understand the particular cynicism of the author of the investigative version, it is enough to read the conclusion of the forensic medical examination, from which it clearly follows that the fatal knife blow was inflicted in the back, and the blows were inflicted, at a minimum, with two different knives.

When releasing Sokrat Arutyunyan from custody, the investigators were in such a hurry that they ignored the fact that Arutyunyan back in 2011 (after his conviction) was recognized as a person whose presence in Russia is undesirable, since his stay in Russia "created a real threat to public order, the rights and legitimate interests of citizens of the Russian Federation", and who, nevertheless, was already convicted in 2015 for "Illegal crossing of the State border of the Russian Federation". However, the investigators, "without a second thought", released Sokrat Arutyunyan, who was illegally in Russia and had been convicted twice, including for a violent crime, to go his separate ways.

Due to the fact that both at the stage of the preliminary investigation and during the consideration of the case in court, numerous pieces of evidence were obtained indicating that the organizer and instigator of the murder was Sokrat Arutyunyan, a statement was sent to the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Bastrykin A.I. to bring Sokrat Arutyunyan to criminal responsibility.

However, unlike the stories in the media, when Bastrykin, “burning with righteous anger,” “reprimands” negligent investigators and gives instructions to initiate a criminal case, no one in the Investigative Committee categorically wanted to consider this statement for several years.

The reasons for such a statement, which have no analogues, , I am inclined to see the investigators' leniency towards the organizer of his son's murder in the personality of the former head of the Investigative Department for the North-West Administrative District of Moscow of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (SU for the North-West Administrative District of Moscow SK RF) Sergei Romodanovsky (son of the former Head of the Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovsky). As Kommersant reported at the end of 2023, the former head of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the North-West Administrative District of the capital, Sergei Romodanovsky, was arrested by the Basmanny Court in connection with charges of organizing a criminal community using his official position or participating in it (Article 210 of the Criminal Code), as well as receiving bribes on an especially large scale (Article 290 of the Criminal Code).

The amount of bribes incriminated to members of the criminal group for manipulating criminal prosecution amounts to several billion rubles. The organized criminal community included current employees of the FSB of the Russian Federation.

After the Khoroshevsky Court of Moscow and then the Moscow City Court found the inaction of the Investigative Department of the North-West Administrative District of Moscow of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation to be illegal in considering this application, but the hearing never began, I appealed to the Basmanny Court (case 3/12-0023/2024, currently in cassation), demanding that Bastrykin's inaction be declared illegal. But only after Rucriminal.info published an article entitled "The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation "got off" the customer of the murder", the Tushinsky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, represented by investigator Zhilkina, "gave birth" to a ruling refusing to initiate a criminal case against Sokrat Arutyunyan.

I have appealed this ruling. I explain in detail, with reference to the pages of the criminal case, why, in my opinion, the decision of investigator Zhilkina is based on "ignoring and distorting established and documented facts", and also why I am convinced that "investigator Zhilkina V.N. is pursuing a single, openly criminal goal - to save the murderer and illegal migrant Arutyunyan S.S. from criminal liability at any cost, even at the cost of her own reputation." The consideration of the complaint against the refusal to initiate a criminal case against Sokrat Arutyunyan will take place in the Tushinsky Court of Moscow on September 16 at 12:00 in courtroom 322 (Judge Nosova, case 3/12-0194/2024).

Source: www.rucriminal.info