Ketevan Kharaidze did not fight off the accusations – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow on Monday sentenced Ketevan Kharaidze, a deputy of the Tverskoy District Council, to four years in prison, finding her guilty of fraud. According to the charges, the deputy, using the conflict between the residents of one of the Moscow houses and the developer, extorted a bribe from the latter. Ms. Kharaidze, who, even while under house arrest, was able to be re-elected for a new term in September 2022, said that she defended the rights of residents and she was slandered by a real blackmailer in order to mitigate her punishment.

The announcement of the verdict for Ketevan Kharaidze, accused of committing fraud on an especially large scale by a group of persons using her official position (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, up to ten years in prison), stretched out for the whole working day due to the delayed start of the meeting and evacuation, which was announced in the Tverskoy court in the afternoon. The process itself lasted a whole year: Judge Aleksey Krivoruchko appointed the first hearing in this case on December 11, 2021, but subsequent hearings were regularly postponed due to the absence of victims and witnesses.

63-year-old Ketevan Kharaidze detained summer 2021. The investigation stated that the deputy elected in 2017 from Yabloko in May 2021 decided to take advantage of the conflict between the tenants and the Apart-project developer, which was building the Cameo Moscow Villas townhouse complex in Pykhov-Tserkovny passage. Residents forbade the developer’s special equipment to pass through and carry out repairs in the residential area of ​​their house, fenced with a barrier, and Ms. Kharaidze, according to investigators, offered the businessmen to resolve this issue for 15 million rubles, taking advantage of her official position and personal authority. Guram Grigoryan, a resident of the same house, allegedly helped the deputy to extort a bribe. Upon receiving the second tranche, he was detained by the FSB and, as noted in the court decision in his case, he immediately concluded a pre-trial deal with the investigation and gave evidence that allowed Ketevan Kharaidze to be detained the very next day. In October 2021, Mr. Grigoryan was sentenced under the same Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to two years in a general regime colony. The court decision notes that the defendant “fully admitted his guilt and repented”, “actively contributed to the full disclosure and investigation of the crime, as well as to the exposure of the organizer of the criminal group.” The Moscow City Court, having considered the appeal of Mr. Grigoryan, left the term assigned to him unchanged.

Ms. Kharaidze spent a month in a pre-trial detention center after her arrest, and then was transferred under house arrest, which included, among other things, a ban on the use of communications and the Internet. In the fall of 2021, she planned to run for the State Duma, so she called her case political. Nevertheless, house arrest did not prevent the deputy in September 2022 be re-elected to the district council for a new term as an independent candidate, but the new composition of the deputies removed her from participation in the meetings. Companions of Ketevan Kharaidze also connected the case with dissatisfaction with her activity in the Tver region.

In particular, the deputy fought against violations during the construction of Cameo Moscow Villas, the developer of which, according to her and according to the testimony of residents of the district, did not provide the new residential complex with its own sewage system and was going to embed it into the worn-out networks of another house.

Due to the constant absence of witnesses and representatives of the developer, the consideration of Ms. Kharaidze’s case progressed very slowly. The backbone of the accusations was based on the testimony of Guram Grigoryan and the results of a search of the deputy’s apartment: two five-thousandth banknotes were found in her coat – according to investigators, part of the 5 million rubles transferred by the developer. The state prosecution considered the defendant’s guilt fully proven, requesting for her six years in prison out of ten possible.

Ketevan Kharaidze denied the allegations. Her defense, in particular, presented evidence to the court refuting the testimony of Mr. Grigoryan, who stated that he met with the deputy on May 12, 2021, to discuss the deal, although, according to their correspondence in the messenger, he was not in Moscow that day. The defendant called the found banknotes planted, noting that they were not fingerprinted. In court, she stated that she honestly defended the interests of Muscovites from the illegal actions of developers and it was for this that she was re-elected for a new term, even while under criminal charges. Mrs. Kharaidze called Guram Grigoryan’s testimony false, saying that he single-handedly demanded money from the developer, and after being caught red-handed, he made a deal to mitigate the punishment.

The court did not accept the motion of the defense to take fingerprints and conduct other additional examinations, and also did not recognize the testimony of Mr. Grigoryan as a slander.

The deputy was sentenced to four years in a general regime colony with a fine of 700,000 rubles. and a ban on holding state and municipal positions for two years after release. In addition, the judge satisfied the developer’s civil claim to recover from Ketevan Kharaidze 5 million rubles transferred to Guram Grigoryan. The defense plans to appeal the verdict.

Kira Heifetz