Telegraph: Hermitage boss Bill Browder sued by Russian convict

Telegraph: Hermitage boss Bill Browder sued by Russian convict

A Russian sawmill foreman convicted of a $230m (£150m) tax fraud is suing his victim, Bill Browder, founder of hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management, for allegedly defaming his “honour and dignity” by claiming he acted in collusion with the police.

Victor Markelov, who is serving a five-year sentence in Saratov prison for the vastly complex fraud, is demanding $3,000 in damages from Mr Browder and two local media outlets that published the alleged “lies”. The case goes to court on Wednesday.

Mr Markelov, whose case is “for the protection of honour, dignity and compensation of moral harm caused”, disputes Mr Browder’s alleged claims that he is a “murderer”, a “swindler” and part of an organised crime cartel connected to the authorities.

Despite pleading guilty last year to fraud, Mr Markelov insists he “was not engaged in theft, larceny or any criminal seizure”.

Mr Browder has alleged that Mr Markelov was involved in the theft of three of his companies that were used illegally to reclaim $230m from the Russian taxpayer.

In his defamation claim, Mr Markelov accepts that he [Markelov] was owner of the companies when “the documents used for refunding the tax were forged”. He concedes: “I understood I acted carelessly when I signed those documents and I... was convicted for the crime I committed as a principal.”

However, he claims to have bought the companies legitimately and stressed: “I am not a member of any criminal group.” Mr Browder alleges the companies were stolen after the police raided his Moscow offices. Once Hermitage discovered the theft, it was reported to the police. The fraud was allegedly carried out subsequent to the report.

Mr Markelov uses the suit to distance the police from any involvement, saying: “I am not familiar with and never communicated with any officers of the law-enforcement agencies who could be related to the [raid].”

He refutes the alleged murder accusation by stating it is a “lie”.

The Georgian Daily: Russia’s Pragmatic Reimperialization

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16913&Itemid=132

February 08, 2010

Janusz Bugajski

The Russian authorities are engaged in a policy of “pragmatic reimperialization” in seeking to restore Moscow’s regional dominance, undermining U.S. global influence, dividing the NATO alliance, neutralizing the European Union (EU), limiting further NATO and EU enlargement, and re-establishing zones of “privileged interest” in the former Soviet bloc, where pliant governments are targeted through economic, political, and security instruments.

Russia’s strategies are pragmatic and opportunistic by avoiding ideology and political partisanship and focusing instead on an assortment of threats, pressures, inducements, and incentives. Despite its expansive ambitions, the Russian Federation is – potentially – a failing state, and may be resorting to increasingly desperate imperial reactions to intractable internal problems that could presage the country’s territorial disintegration. 

Full Text

Russia: St. Petersburg land reclamation project faces ecological protest

http://www.dredgingtoday.com/2010/02/09/russia-st-peterburg-land-reclamation-project-faces-ecological-protest/

Source: The St. Petersburg Times, February 9, 2010

In December, the Federation Council approved the enlargement of the territory of St. Petersburg by 400 hectares of reclaimed land between the town of Sestroretsk and the Lisy Nos headland. A group of scientists who have studied the ecological situation in the Gulf of Finland organized a press conference last month to express their position on the project, based on research into the impact of recent construction. The scientists argue that future construction on reclaimed land is a threat to the ecological situation in the Neva Bay.

The research was mainly focused on work carried out by the Marine Facade company, which carried out dredging and building on reclaimed land in order to construct a new passenger port terminal off Vasilyevsky Island. Other projects examined were building work on St. Petersburg’s flood barrier, and the construction of a new stadium on Krestovsky Island. The evaluation of the damage is mostly based on images of the bay taken by satellites and studied in the State Research Institute of Cosmoaerogeology.

Images shown to journalists at the press conference mostly dated back to 2006 and 2007, when according to Leontina Sukhachyova, senior researcher at the Institute of Cosmoaerogeology, the ecological situation in the Neva Bay was at its worst.

In the images, soil was shown to have dissolved in water, creating areas of muddy water. Sukhachyova said that according to international regulations during dredging, a maximum of 5 percent of the seabed soil should dissolve into the water. If the percentage is any bigger, work should be stopped and addition environmental protection measures should be taken. The scientists say that their research into the Marine Facade project showed that the rate of dissolving soil was up to 50 percent, but no measures were taken.

According to experts, such water pollution is harmful for the flora and fauna of the Neva Bay. Georgy Noskov, director of the Ladozhskaya ornithological laboratory of the biology institute at St. Petersburg State University, says the destruction of shoal water areas is a major problem, as they are home to many unique species of fish and birds. Water pollution affects the plankton that is the main source of food for most fish. When the disturbed soil settles on the bottom, it destroys aquatic plants — another source of food for marine inhabitants. As a result, Noskov said, some areas of the Neva Bay are already “dead.”

The number of fish being caught there has been decreasing dramatically since the 1970s, but according to ecology experts, the situation will get even worse in two or three years when the generation of fish that has grown up in muddied waters reaches adulthood.

According to Sukhachyova, the situation could improve in the future if construction firms make the results of environmental monitoring public — currently, it is often classified commercial information. She also said that the areas monitored should be bigger and go beyond the area of construction.

Alexander Ribalko, chief researcher at the Sevmorgeo monitoring center, said control over developers was not sufficient. “You know the way it is done here — for example, a truck takes away the soil, but petrol costs money, so the truck leaves it somewhere on the way to its destination,” he said.

The ecologists said an attempt had been made by scientists to create two protected areas off the north and south coasts of the bay. They were included in the St. Petersburg General Plan law, but the idea was spiked by a federal law that declared all areas of water to be federal property and free from protection. Experts are currently trying to solve this legal collision.

Alexander Shemberg, head of PR for Marine Facade, told The St. Petersburg Times that construction is now complete and was carried out in keeping with the plan, which was in turn developed in accordance with the law. Commenting on the scientists’ claims, he said, “It might be a personal point of view and might just be that they are offended that they were not hired to carry out the [official] examination.”

“Some sinister trucks that are said to take away dust at night are simply more interesting,” said Igor Merkulov, head of the permitting department at Marine Facade. “More interesting than ordinary construction going on.”