Criminal case against former lawmaker dropped

Russian procurator general’s office closed yesterday a criminal case against Viktor Gitin, former State Duma deputy “for lack of corpus delicti.” This puts an end to a 10-month long epic with the arrest and the deporting to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk of a man who was first to publicly call the Krasnoyarsk Territory’s incumbent rulers grabbers and occupants. Governor Aleksandr Lebed, found no other forcible arguments but warned his opponent against speaking out or else. The local procurator’s office took the hint having accused Mr. Gitin with taking a bribe at the rate of $2m for an alleged lobbying of one of the regional programmes. It took about a year to make it clear to investigators that there could be no kickbacks with a programme for which no government funding had come in. As a result, we have heaps o papers, Mr. Gitin’s 1-month long imprisonment, his property seizure followed by his 2 infarctions and 4 heart surgeries. Besides, criminal proceedings have recently been ended against Valeri Zubov, former governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the same being done in relation to Valentin Cherezov, his deputy. Vladimir Kuzmin, Mr. Zubov’s another deputy, against whom 15 cases had been launched, failed to survive prosecution – he died last year “from heart failure,” Inna Novikova reports.