Comment by trhway
14 hours ago
The point here isn't whether this guy clean or not. The point is that you can't trust allegations made by Russia. Any allegations made by Russia are what is called "fruit of the poisoned tree".
And just for example, Navalny was put in prison for alleged and proven in a so called "Russian court of law" financial/commercial crimes.
>He was perfectly fine living in Putin's Russia until 2022
That suggests that Russia was for 20+ years fine with whatever financial crimes this guy had been committing as long as he played ball (and like many there continue to commit while staying loyal to the regime), and is really using these crimes to get him now for political motives. (and, yes, looking at current Russian opposition you can find a bunch of guys who is rich and most probably made their money in Russia not in completely legal way, and i honestly don't have respect for them, yet it is clear that the regime is going after them purely for their opposition)
>and prosecutors also found that the privatization in the 90s was illegal
there has been whole wave of such findings recently (and Supreme Court specifically removed statute of limitations here). As result the privatization is usually nullified, the property gets confiscated by the government, and later it ends up in the hands of Putin's friends, family, loyalists. It is a huge redistribution of assets under the guise of "Russian law"
> That suggests that Russia was for 20+ years fine with whatever financial crimes this guy had been committing as long as he played ball ... and is really using these crimes to get him now for political motives.
Even if so, it does not contradict the idea that his actions may have been unlawful and thus can be punished according to crimial law.
>Even if so, it does not contradict the idea that his actions may have been unlawful and thus can be punished according to crimial law.
What "criminal law" you're referring to? If Russian - then not really. Uniformity of law application and enforcement is that makes law legitimate. Using the law as political prosecution tool clearly undermines the legitimacy of the law, at least when it used in such a way (and Interpol clearly responds to Russia in those requests that Interpol doesn't take part in political prosecution).
Right now Russia has no legitimate laws. Even killers and rapers are getting pardoned after signing up for war for just 6 or 18 months. Some of them have already returned, killed and raped again. The financial and economic crimes laws are used only when government people want to punish somebody for either political reasons or for not paying [enough] bribes.
That again isn't the judgement on this guy's crimes. If he say stole from somebody, and that somebody can bring a suit and prove it in say an Europe or US court - i'm all for that.