MOSCOW, July 30 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) – Businessman Sergei Polonsky’s lawyer has filed a complaint with the Tverskoy Court in Moscow against an investigator who has refused to remove Polonsky from a wanted list. Polonsky has been charged in Russia with embezzling billions of rubles from investors in the Rublyovskaya Riviera and Kutuzovskaya Milya projects. Attorney Alexander Karabanov talked to RIA Novosti about this on Wednesday.
He wrote in his complaint that Polonsky was put on the wanted list on July 3, 2013 in violation of the procedure for summoning him to the reading of his charges.
“None of the approved procedural measures of constraint have been applied to Polonsky after he was charged, and there were no serious grounds for putting him on the wanted list,” Karabanov writes in his complaint. He said Polonsky is unable to leave Cambodia at the moment because the investigation of his case there is not over and he has been instructed not to leave the country. The lawyer claims that the investigators are fully aware of this.
“We have in our possession an official reference from the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Cambodia, which reads that Polonsky has been entered into the consular register, which means that the Russian authorities know where he is currently residing and that he is not hiding [from investigators]. This also contradicts the terms of the decision to put Polonsky on Interpol’s wanted list,” Karabanov said.
He has asked the court to declare the refusal of investigator Oleg Silchenko to remove Polonsky from the wanted list illegal and unjustified and to instruct the investigator to correct these violations. If the Moscow court dismisses or rules against the complaint, Polonsky’s lawyer will appeal to the European court of human rights.
Polonsky is the founder of a multipurpose corporation, Mirax Group, which has carried out large development projects, including Federation Tower in the Moscow International Business City, office buildings Mirax Plaza, Poklonnaya 11 and Admiral, condominium developments Fort Kutuzov, Kutuzovskaya Riviera, Rublyovskaya Riviera, Mirax Park, Golden Keys 1 and 2, and the Well House.
In June 2013, Russia’s Interior Ministry announced that Sergei Polonsky was charged in absentia and placed on the international wanted list for the alleged embezzlement of billions of rubles from investors in the Kutuzovskaya Milya and Rublyovskaya Riviera projects.
In November 2013, he was arrested in Cambodia at Russia’s request, only to be released in January 2014.
On January 13, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow seized the stock of foreign companies owned by Polonsky, who has assessed them at $100 million. The ruling came as an injunction in the embezzlement case in which Polonsky was arrested in absentia last year.