How Russian company PhosAgro, listed on the LSE and headed by a former CEO of the LSE, has fabricated a criminal case against its employee

This post (like all the previous ones) should not exist, because it is impossible to write posts from St. Petersburg pre-trial detention center number 4, where exactly 8 years ago a St. Petersburg court decided to put me in the framework of a tragicomic fabricated criminal case.

Below are excerpts from a witness statement for a British court, in which my then lawyer Valery Stepanov (pictured) described the tragicomic but shocking events of those days. I especially like the story with the empty envelopes in which the subpoenas were supposed to be, because this means that the investigators and judges were well aware of the ridiculousness of the case in the framework of which they were going to arrest me (there is no other explanations why they did not want my lawyers to be present in the courtroom).

In second place in my rating of comical absurdity is the story of how exactly, according to the investigators and judges, I escaped from Russia. I did this on a long-defunct flight of a long-defunct airline, and at the time when this flight was still flying, it was not flying from Moscow to the USA, but in the opposite direction. That is, I escaped from Moscow on a phantom flight, which was flying to Moscow.

In third place in my rating is PhosAgro’s offer, made shortly after the decision to arrest me, on how to terminate the criminal case they had fabricated. In all seriousness, it was proposed to me that, in the framework of the fabricated criminal case, I would be declared insane.

And if we talk about the rating of bewilderment, then in first place by a huge margin is bewilderment about the reasons for such a large-scale persecution of me. I became a victim of persecution not because I did anything bad for PhosAgro, but on the contrary because I brought them a profit of about a billion dollars (according to their own calculations) and saved them from possible bankruptcy, and the owners from possible imprisonment.

So, the description of the events of those days by lawyer Valery Stepanov:

After the events of 17 March 2016 [the search in my home], the recognition of Sychev as an accused was postponed five times due to the absence of Sychev. At the same time, the investigator did not express any concern about this, although he should have taken the necessary measures against the suspect after the first failure to appear (change the measure of restraint, put him on the wanted list, etc.).

Later it became known to me that just at that time, negotiations were taking place with Sychev, initiated by the mediator Kondratyev, who acted in his own words on behalf of PhosAgro.

The demands to Sychev, voiced by Kondratyev, boiled down to the fact that the amount of obligations to him would decrease several times and that Sychev had to pay 4 million dollars. For this, Sychev was promised the termination of the criminal case.

Sychev recorded his conversations with Kondratyev on a dictaphone. I listened to them and can confirm that this is nothing more than extortion committed against Sychev in order to significantly reduce the amount of the obligations to him, as well as extortion of a bribe in the amount of $ 4 million. In addition, threats of physical elimination were voiced against Sychev.

It was against the background of these negotiations, which lasted several weeks, that the indictment of Sychev was repeatedly postponed. Only after Sychev refused to fulfill the conditions put forward to him, the investigator recognised Sychev as an accused in absentia.

This accusation indicated that the investigation did not find out nine circumstances related to the secret penetration of an unknown person into the Antoshin's [former CEO of PhosAgro] house, but nevertheless concluded that it was Sychev who organized it. There was no one evidence of this. According to the Criminal Code such an accusation is no more than a confirmation of innocence of Sychev in the form of at least unconfirmed involvement. But contrary to the law, Sychev was recognized as accused.

After that, empty envelopes were sent to me, lawyer Dergachev, as well as to Sychev himself, from the investigative body. We managed to find out that in relation to Sychev, the court hearing is scheduled to consider the case on his arresting. The purpose of sending the empty envelopes was to create the appearance of notifying the accused and his lawyers about the hearing, but to prevent us from participating there.

However, lawyer Dergachev and I did appear at the hearing. The court ruled on Sychev's detention, having concluded that the investigator had substantiated his suspicion of Sychev, and Sychev left for the United States on a ticket on a long-defunct flight from the United States to Russia. Of course, such a decision does not stand up to criticism.

After that, PhosAgro’s lawyer Lashevich contacted Sychev’s lawyer Dergachev twice. He offered to end the criminal prosecution of Sychev on the condition that he drops all financial demands against PhosAgro. At the same time, it was proposed to formalize the termination of the criminal prosecution through the recognition of Sychev as insane.”

All this would be very funny if it weren’t so sad, because it is about the monstrous consequences for me, who did nothing wrong to the customers of this tragicomedy. 8 years from the moment when, although I did not end up in a pre-trial detention center (thanks to a happy accident), when my freedom became limited, I can no longer return to my homeland.

?

Over the next eight years, I began to receive numerous and regular death threats demanding that I drop the British lawsuit against PhosAgro. Moreover, last year, instead of death threats, I began to receive information about the order that the owners of PhosAgro had already made for my murder by poisoning in connection with the British trial. These threats (along with attempts to kill me in Russia) attracted a lot of attention from the British press, for which many thanks to the journalists (for example, this article).

Unlike the death threats, the story with the fabricated criminal case has not yet received due publicity, despite the fact that at the time of the fabrication of this criminal case, PhosAgro had been listed on London Stock Exchange for the fifth year, and the board of directors of PhosAgro was headed by the former director of this Exchange, Xavier R. Rolet . It’s the same as if some giant British company also listed on London Stock Exchange (for example, British Airways or British Petroleum) fabricated a criminal case against its employee. The scandal would be very loud.

It is also interesting how British judges reacted to information about the fabricated criminal case, death threats and other facts of “wrongdoing” on the part of PhosAgro. Deputy judge of the High Court, Mr Beltrami KC, by his decision, forbade me to mention any facts of wrongdoings. According to Mr Beltrami KC, I have the right to inform the court about monstrous things on the part of PhosAgro only through lawyers, the impossibility of whose participation (due to my lack of money) Mr Beltrami KC knew very well.

After the decision of Mr Beltrami KC, I easily found in open sources information that he simultaneously works as a barrister for the British lawyers of PhosAgro, and his children work in a law firm ( Simmons & Simmons ) representing the owners of PhosAgro. Contrary to the requirements of the law, Mr Beltrami KC “forgot” to tell me about all this.

Judge of the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice David Bean went even further. In response to my complaint against the decision of Mr Beltrami KC, Mr Bean wrote extremely briefly that all my words about any facts of wrongdoing on the part of PhosAgro are "totally without merits". Lord Justice David Bean did not provide any justification for such a strange and harsh conclusion at all. In essence, although in a completely different format, he brought to life PhosAgro’s dream of declaring me insane.

So, I came across corruption in the British judicial system, which, by the way, PhosAgro's representatives directly warned me about right after my arrest in absentia in Russia. Lawyer Kirill Trukhanov , repeating PhosAgro’s proposal to terminate my criminal prosecution by declaring me insane, commented on my British lawsuit (which was then in the preparation stage) as follows. He said that the lawsuit would be stifled with the help of an army of lawyers and hinted at their use of corruption in the British courts.

And in the emails of last year about ordering my murder, the issue of corruption in the British judicial system was addressed in direct words. The constant mention of total corruption through the lawyer of Simmons & Simmons , Ed Crosse was the second most important part of these emails (after information about ordering my murder).