Tales of Judge Balthazar Garson
Who and why is fabricating the "sensational cases" against Russians in Spain? How did the ambitions of Spanish judge, who was discharged for suspected corruption, nearly sink Kalunga Shipping Company?
Vladimir Kokorev is a doctor of historical sciences, whose studies of the African region are still used as manuals for students of Russian universities. He used to be a Soviet diplomat and a personal interpreter of Spanish for Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko. When the USSR collapsed, he immigrated to Spain, where he later became a successful businessman.
A bit more than one year ago, the Spanish press published absurd insinuations claiming that Kokorev had robbed the president of Equatorial Guinea or laundered $26.4 million on his behalf in Spain. As Profile magazine wrote, "Vladimir Kokorev gave no reason to suspect him of having any ties with the criminal world. His reputation suffers quite unreasonably."
The story started, when two Spanish newspapers (El Mundo and El Pais) published virtually identical materials in late September 2009 about the business activities of Kalunga Shipping Company, which is owned by Vladimir Kokorev. In particular, they wrote that «spouses Julia and Vladimir Kokorevs were called by the Spanish public prosecutor to testify on the case of suspected illegal cash flow through their bank accounts. The aforementioned newspapers are the most popular ones in Spain, and their positions on any issue coincide very rarely. Probably, this very coincidence of the viewpoints of two «unfriendly» Spanish newspapers convinced some Russian periodicals to publish the articles containing unverified information, which later appeared false. Then the newspapers were full of such headlines as "Russian couple stole $26.4 million from the president of Equatorial Guinea."
Former diplomat Kokorev has built his business from the zero point. At first he traded frozen fish and then timber. Some time later, using his ties from the time of his diplomatic work, he established a company for ship freight and service, which employed some three hundred seamen, who emigrated from Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, and Estonia as they got unemployed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They were very surprised, when their employer company was referred to by the Spanish press as "non-existent', and the vessels, on which they carried cargoes for several years and were paid the legal wages, were called as the «Flying Dutchmen». In late December 2009, they wrote the Open Letter of Kalunga Seamen to protect V. B. Kokorev and his family members, which was signed by 244 seamen sailing on the Kalunga managed vessels from Sevastopol, Kherson, Nikolaev, Kerch, Bobruisk, Brody, Borisov, Pervomaisk, Klaipeda, and Tallinn.
Meanwhile, the attempt to fabricate a "case" against Vladimir Kokorev through the Spanish press is getting more and more new details.
Smart Garson for Banker Botin.
It happened so that in 2004, like many other large businessmen, who hold accounts with American banks, Vladimir Kokorev already passed through the investigation of the public prosecutor. This investigation was initiated by US authorities, which (in terms of the so-called Patriotic Act following September 11, 2001) investigated the whole national banking system, through which the international settlements were carried out. At that time, the Spanish law-enforcement authorities had no claims with respect to the "Guinean" payments of Kalunga. This very fact proves that the Kokorev’s shipping company is not a ghost company, which is created to launder the money of the Guinean president, but a serious player operating for a long time on the market. However, for the Spanish mass media, this information did not serve the evidence of the pure reputation of Kalunga but vice versa.
The following facts are still more interesting. It appears that the information about the investigation supposedly carried out in Spain against the Russian businessman was published in press at the moment, when the investigation was started with respect to the business of Spanish banker Emilio Botin. And this investigation was carried out by famous judge Balthazar Garson, who was recently discharged from the office after the initiation of three criminal cases against him, with the most serious one of them related to accusations of corruption and caused by the fact that Garson terminated one of the criminal proceedings against the aforementioned banker on the allegation of the «sponsorship aid » (in the amount of 300 thousand US dollars).
Garson became widely famous in 1998, when he declared the accusations for violation of the human rights against former Chilean dictator Pinochet and demanded his deportation to Spain. Pinochet was not deported on his demand. Then the judge used the same accusations to prosecute against the former members of the Argentinean junta. But he also failed in this case and had only the self-advertisement caused by the scale of this case and nothing more.
