Prosecutor General\'s Office asks to seize Renaissance style palaces from arrested ex-Mary El head

The facades of the buildings were painted personally by Leonid Markelov.

The Prosecutor General's Office asks the court to seize property worth more than 1.5 billion rubles ($22.9 million), including two Renaissance buildings in the center of Yoshkar-Ola, from ex-Head of Mary El, Leonid Markelov, who is arrested on charges of Bribe-Taking, Abuse of Official Powers, and Illegal Sale of Ammunition. This is reported by RBC. The facades of the buildings were painted personally by Markelov.

The suit of the Prosecutor's Office only lists the addresses and cadastral numbers of the facilities, some of which are located in the center of Yoshkar-Ola, a source in law enforcement bodies told the publication. In particular, the Office intends to forfeit three buildings and two land plots on Tsargradsky and Voskresensky Avenue, as well as one building and four land plots on Leninsky Avenue. 

The former head of Mary El told RBC that the property that the Prosecutor's Office wanted to seized belonged to his father’s widow. According to Markelov, he runs business with his father since 1991. After his father died, his widow, Tatyana Ivanovna Markelova, became the business partner of the future head of the Republic. In 2001, Markelov took office and transferred all assets in monetary items in a bill of exchange deposit. Following the crisis of 2008, the Markelovs' partners stopped investing in their business, and his father's widow invested in enterprises of the Republic. 

The real estate was built on the profit from Markelova’s activities, the ex-governor stressed. “Legal entities took loans, built residential and non-residential buildings, and set it in motion. With the money raised, the legal entities built facilities in Dutch style and made a profit from renting those,” Markelov wrote in a letter to RBC. The property that the Prosecutor's Office wants to seize is owned by enterprises, with which, according to Markelov, he has nothing to do. 

The former official added that the complexes built by Tatyana Markelova "transformed the city of Yoshkar-Ola." “Palaces, such as 12 Apostles clock, rose in the wastelands. Obviously, someone gets an itch to take them away, recount and sell,” writes Markelov.

According to the ex-Governor, the prosecutor’s office proves in the lawsuit that the buildings belong to him by the fact that he personally developed the facades of future buildings. He added that he “personally drew the facades” of 100 buildings that were built in Yoshkar-Ola, but did not earn any profit from real estate or from the stepmother's business. According to him, he only turned to her with a request to support social projects and the construction of temples.

Leonid Markelov was arrested in April 2017. A few days before his arrest, he resigned. According to investigators, he received a bribe in the amount of 235 million rubles ($3.5 m) from the founder of Akashevskaya poultry factory Nikolay Krivash in exchange for an opportunity to receive state support for the development of the agricultural complex through a trustee, Director of Region 12 Channel.

The investigators believe that the bribe was formalized as a fictitious transaction for the purchase of shares of the unprofitable enterprise Teplichnoye, which belonged to TV channel Region 12. Subsequently, the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic, Iraida Dolgusheva, indicated deliberately false information in the documents so that Krivash could receive several billion rubles in the form of state subsidies, investigators deem. Kozhanova and Dolgusheva are under arrest, Krivash escaped.

The search at Markelov's turned up pistol cartridges, in connection with which, in addition to Bribe-Taking (Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and Abuse Official Powers (Art. 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), he was charged with Illegal Trafficking of Ammunition (Art. 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The ex-Governor himself denies his guilt. According to him, he did not lobby for the interests of Krivash, and Akashevskaya poultry farm had received subsidies even before its Head met the Governor.

Markelov calls his case a political one and notes that he is "merely scared" to answer the question about the orchestrators of his persecution: "If I answer, I will be on the hook." He added that he partially lost his sight and hearing in the detention center.

via