General Popov’s lawyers asked to justify his client
As it became known, “Kommersant”, during the debate of the parties in a military court in the process in the case of the former commander of the 58th combined arms army, Major General Ivan Popov and entrepreneur Sergey Moiseev brought new arguments to the defense. The funds received by the businessman from the sale of part of the metal structures for protective structures, which the investigation considers stolen, in fact, according to lawyers, were aimed at the acquisition of the missing equipment. The lawyers asked commander Popov to justify, and his accomplice to impose a conditional punishment.
In the Tambov garrison military court in the debate, lawyers of Major General Ivan Popov and entrepreneur Sergey Moiseev, as well as the defendants themselves, performed. “I noted that the prosecutor’s office did not provide any real evidence of the involvement of my client in the crimes incriminated to him,” the defender of the former commander Sergei Buinovsky told Kommersant. “They are not in the case, and during the process – one comprehension, assumptions and supposedly indirect evidence. At the same time, a number of witnesses clearly gave evidence that the investigation needed so as not to become the accused. The prosecutor’s office should be refused to be the charge, and she, on the contrary, requested a long term for Ivan Popov. ”
The lawyer did not specify his arguments in favor of the innocence of the general, recalling that the process was closed.
Recall, Ivan Popov and entrepreneur Sergey Moiseev GVSU SKR accuses In fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code), and personally the general is also in the official forgery (Article 292 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, the defendants are involved in the the summer of 2023, 1.7 thousand tons of metal products purchased by the Military-Grazhda administration of the Zaporizhzhya region for the construction of defensive structures and transferred to the military.
The accusation believes that General Popov deliberately requested more metal than was required in order to realize excess on the side, which Mr. Moiseev was engaged in. And in order to take suspicions from himself, the military leader forced his subordinates to put his signatures in the application. Thanks to the scam, its participants received more than 100 million rubles.
Meanwhile, according to the sources of Kommersant, during the debate, the previously unknown media argument of the defense sounded. It consists in the fact that the funds that entrepreneur Sergei Moiseev received from the implementation of a small part of the metal structures received for the construction of protective structures in the Zaporizhzhya region were not assigned to the defendants, according to the investigation. According to protection, the money was spent on the purchase of equipment for working with metal, which was sharply not enough – gas welding machines, metal -cutting equipment, etc.
Ivan Popov himself once again told the court that he would not find guilty. He again emphasized that he was engaged in his zone with his military issues, not metal.
Accordingly, I did not sign any documents on metal structures. And the metal, according to the general, was needed: they say, how much do not give, and 100 thousand tons, and 200 thousand – everything will be used.
The lawyers of General Popov Sergey Buinovsky and Viktor Dugin asked for the client to justify, their colleagues, representing the interests of the entrepreneur, proposed to appoint a conditional punishment to Sergey Moiseev. Recall that the state prosecution requested 6 years of the colony for the former commander, for his accomplice – 5.5 years.
On Tuesday, April 22, the defendants will perform with the last word, then the judge will retire to the advisory room for a sentence. At the same time, as Kommersant previously reported, Ivan Popov will soon go to the war zone. The Ministry of Defense has already petitioned the court to suspend the criminal prosecution of Major General and his sent to the military unit, so that he would be concluded with a contract for participation in a special military operation. The decision will be made upon the announcement of the sentence.
