Esprit de corps vs criminal cover-up

Lawyer Igor Trunov does not understand how the Moscow prosecutor's office can simultaneously admit and deny facts of looting after the onslaught on the Dubrovka Theatre.

"As far back as summer, in an application filed to the Moscow prosecutor, Ms Elena Mikhailov demanded an investigation into the theft of sealed-up money during the Nord-Ost case investigation. The money was in the pocket of her killed husband and it was sealed up absolutely correctly and in the presence of witnesses," Mr Igor Trunov, Chairman of the Moscow Central Bar, told Caucasian Knot's correspondent. "In late October, signed by Mr Kalchuk, investigator for especially important cases in the Department for Investigation into Banditry and Murders at the Moscow Prosecutor's Office, a statement of denial of criminal proceedings was received. The statement reads, in particular, that there really was money, but that it was stolen by an officer from the investigation group. However, he had died in a car accident and therefore, without any examination whether or not he had really stolen the money, no criminal case was opened. I have announced that I will appeal this decision."

"The criminal case materials indicated that the killed man had had $254 and 3,150 roubles on him," explained the lawyer. "Yet the money was not given out to his relatives with other personal things."

In turn, the press service of the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office has today replied to the lawyer: "Based on the statement of the relatives of late Maksim Mikhailov about theft (not looting) of money, the Prosecutor's Office has carried out an examination and made a procedural decision to deny criminal proceedings for absence of the criminal act."

Mr Trunov sees no logics in the contradictory explanations of the prosecutor's office, but he has "no trust in such statements, either the first one or the second one."

"There is no point in them except that they have actually recognised the fact, but shifted the blame onto a killed officer of the Federal Security Service," the lawyer says. "But I knew that person and he was a good and honest man. It is wrong and at least unseemly to cast a shadow on a late person, and it is illegal to declare his actions criminal without an investigation."

"Looting is everywhere," says Mr Trunov. "We have about 50 cases of looting with respect to those killed in Dubrovka. And these 50 cases are just those that featured in the civil claims for damages."

Law enforcement agencies actually never investigate looting, according to the lawyer. "They don't do that even where this is evident like in Ms Mikhailov's case."

"Today, looting accompanies all cases of terrorist acts and industrial disasters," emphasised Mr Trunov.

He explains the fact that practically no looting cases are opened with "protecting esprit de corps."

"In this case, the prosecutor's office in its first statement did recognise the fact of looting only because it was attributed to a Federal Security Service officer, not one from the prosecutor's office. If it had been a person from the prosecutor's office, there would have been no recognition as esprit de corps would not have allowed that. That is why it is practically impossible to succeed in seeking an investigation with respect to prosecutors because it is the prosecutor's office that will carry out such an investigation. This is where everything ends," Mr Trunov says.