Russia Profile
July 22, 2009
The President Knows Better
Judging by His Reaction to the Recent Murders of Public Figures in Russia, Medvedev’s Proclaimed Belief in the Rule of Law Is Hardly Genuine
Comment by Shaun Walker
It’s been another bad week for President Dmitry Medvedev’s drive to bring an end to legal nihilism in Russia, and introduce fair courts and faith in the legal system among the population. Not that this was ever going to happen overnight, of course, but the signs are not looking good. The president’s reaction to the murder of Natalya Estemirova suggests that he will not hesitate to influence the course of a criminal investigation, if need be.
After the murder of Stanislav Markelov in January, I wrote that Dmitry Medvedev, as a lawyer who promoted an increased respect of law, should have come out and condemned the killing. Not long after, he did indeed do so, explaining that his silence was due to, rather bizarrely, his not wanting to influence the investigation. Still, he condemned the killing, made some sensible sounding pronouncements and even gave a long interview to Novaya Gazeta.
But despite all of this, not much progress seems to have been made in the investigation. And last week, when yet another murder happened, Medvedev’s response was quite stunning. At a press conference in Germany, he labelled attempts to suggest that Ramzan Kadyrov might have been responsible as “primitive,” and said that he was certain they weren’t true. Quite what this is, other than an attempt to influence the investigation, is hard to fathom. Medvedev knows better than anyone that in Russia, once he has made a pronouncement like this, the investigators know that they shouldn’t dare take this track of inquiry. As Lyudmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group put it, “Investigators in the country know that there is a red line which, if they cross, will either land them in prison, or they’ll simply be taken off the case.”
When Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial, stepped out and accused Ramzan Kadyrov of the killing, the Chechen president immediately said he was going to sue. He supposedly even called Orlov on his mobile and asked how the head of Memorial dared to make such insulting accusations given that he was neither a judge nor an investigator. Orlov, of course, was simply voicing the suspicions that everyone has about how the murder of Natalya Estemirova was able to happen. Far more serious questions should be asked of Medvedev – how could he possibly claim to know, a day after the attack, when on a foreign trip, that what to most people seems like the most obvious explanation for the murder (or at least a very plausible one) was false? And how is he able to publically rule it out so quickly? Next to this, his supposedly sincere words of outrage at the killing and his message of condolences to Estemirova’s family seem merely insulting.
Also the day after the murder, Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Edelev said that the investigative team was working through four possible versions of the murder. One of these was that the murder was linked to her professional activities, said Edelev. Another version was that favourite old chestnut of the Russian leadership when it comes to political killingsthat it was meant to discredit the leadership of Russia, or in this case of Chechnya. These opponents of Kadyrov that are so determined to take out his enemies for him – in Moscow, Vienna, Dubai and Grozny – really are a dedicated bunch.
Even more absurdly, Edelev said that the third and fourth versions that were being explored were robbery and disputes in Estemirova’s personal life. The idea that robbers would kidnap a famous human rights activist, drive her into a neighbouring republic through some of the strictest checkpoints in the whole country, and then murder her – all without so much as taking her mobile phone, is simply ludicrous. And I’m sure that Edelev knows this as well as we do.
Indeed, all that has changed, it would seem, since Medvedev has come into power, is the surface rhetoric. Instead of being told that the victim was inconsequential, we’re now told that she was very important and that the president sends his condolences. But this doesn’t stop the president from ruling out one of the most likely culprits before the investigation has even started, and we can be pretty certain that whoever really ordered the murder of Estemirova will never be brought to justice.
As a footnote to all of this, it also came out last week that Shalva Chigirinsky, the businessman whose empire has dissolved around him since the financial crisis hit, has filed a statement saying that a 50-percent stake was secretly held in his company by Elena Baturina, development magnate and wife of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Chigirinsky said he had gone into partnership with Baturina to get ahead in construction projects because “no major projects can proceed in the city without her backing.” Baturina, of course, denies all the claims, but what is interesting is the forum in which they are being aired – London’s High Court. As so often, it is the London courts where juicy details about the backroom deals between Russian oligarchs come out – the idea of anyone being able to file similar claims in a Moscow courtroom is simply unthinkable.
This kind of case, plus the Mikhail Khodorkovsky trial, plus the general fragility of the court system and supreme vulnerability of judges to administrative pressure from above, suggests that Medvedev has a lot of work to do to improve the legal situation here. But his comments in response to the murder of Estemirova hint at the fact that he is not genuine in his desire to do so.
- Back to the Top -