VLADIVOSTOK. March 23. VOSTOK-MEDIA – The officers of the federal security Service of the Russian Federation for Primorskiy Krai detained 33-year-old lawyer Roman Zolotaryev on March 17 in Vladivostok.
The ground for apprehension of the lawyer was the application of his defendant that now is brought to trial on suspicion of fraud. The defendant with whom the lawyer had concluded an agreement to represent his interests addressed to the state security agency with a statement that the lawyer extorted 500,000 rubbles (allegedly, for himself and for the investigator that processed the case). On March 17, right at the moment when the money were handed over by the defendant to the lawyer Zolotaryev, the latter was apprehended by the security service officers.
Soon after the officers rom investigation department of Primorskiy Krai initiated a case against the lawyer Zolotaryev. And on March 19 the federal court for Leninskiy district ruled that he was to be placed under detention.
The lawyers’ community of Primorskiy Krai is indignant at the arrest of Zolotaryev. The fact is that the taken money is a amount of compensation for lawyer, that was stated in the official agreement between the defendant and the lawyer. In the course of working on the case the lawyer managed to arrange line of defense and made his best to keep the defendant from imprisonment. Zolotaryev was very close to termination of the criminal case, though, for no explicable reason the defendant applied to federal security agency with a statement that the lawyer Zolotaryev had proposed to terminate the criminal case if the defendant would give him a bribe. According to the defendant, Zolotaryev extorted 500,000 rubles. After handing over of the money, Zolotaryev was not even given an offing to give an official receiving reports for payment, because he was detained at once by the officers of the Federal Security Service.
The defense of the lawyer confirms that right after the apprehension, during the conversation with the attorney Mel’nikov, Zolotaryev said that operatives from the Federal Security Service that executed the detention, demanded of him to hand over money taken from him to one of the investigators from the Regional Internal Affairs Directorate in exchange for freedom. Zolotaryev refused such ‘collaboration’, considering all charges in his address invalid, the statement of the defendant false and the actions of the operatives – provocative. Soon after detention of Zolotaryev, one of the offices of the Regional Internal Affairs Directorate was searched. During the search the criminal case of the defendant was withdrawn by the officers from Federal Security Agency and prosecutor’s office.