“I don’t see the need to keep him behind bars.” At a meeting with human rights activists, Putin commented on the arrest of the Shaninka rector

During a meeting with members of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he did not consider it necessary to keep the rector of Shaninka, Professor Sergei Zuev, under arrest in the pre-trial detention center. About it informs “Novaya Gazeta” with reference to the member of the HRC Leonid Nikitinsky.

“I see no need to keep him behind bars,” the president said in response to a speech by HRC member Nikolai Svanidze.

The answer came after a break in the meeting between Putin and the HRC. In this part of the conversation, the broadcast of the federal television stopped. In total, the president talked with members of the HRC for more than four hours.

Without broadcasting, human rights activists also discussed the liquidation of Memorial with the President. Putin said he had requested additional information on the trial of the human rights society.

On December 3, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow extended the arrest term for the director of the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, the rector of “Shaninka” Sergei Zuev in the case of fraud, he was left in the pre-trial detention center until March 7. Zuev’s defense asked the court to release him on bail of two million rubles.

During the meeting, Zuev felt bad, his blood pressure increased. The court refused to postpone the hearing. The condition was stabilized with the help of drugs.

Sergei Zuev was detained in October in the case of the former Deputy Minister of Education Marina Rakova. He is suspected of stealing 21 million rubles from the Fund for New Forms of Education Development. The rector was initially placed under house arrest, but on November 9, the Moscow City Court placed Zuev in a pre-trial detention center, despite the fact that over the past month he suffered several hypertensive crises. The measure of restraint was changed at the request of the prosecutor’s office.

Rakova, according to the investigation, as deputy head of the Ministry of Education received state funding for a project for the Fund for New Forms of Education Development, which she herself headed. In addition, she stole funds when concluding government contracts for the implementation of the Teacher of the Future project in 2019, investigators say. Shaninka was the contractor for the Teacher of the Future.

According to the findings of the investigative expertise, reports on ongoing scientific research have signs of falsification.

Zuev’s defense said that the case involved two contracts with an initial value of 50 million rubles. However, during the year they were not executed in full and were terminated by agreement of the parties. By that time, the performers had already received 21 million rubles.

On November 25, Zuev was charged in a criminal case on fictitious employment of employees of the Ministry of Education.

As reported in the press center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the investigator of the Moscow head office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs charged Zuev with a crime under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale).

According to the investigation, in 2018 Zuev, together with the former Deputy Minister of Education Marina Rakova and the former Deputy Director General of the Foundation for New Forms of Education Development Yevgeny Zak, entered into a criminal conspiracy to steal funds from the RANEPA Institute.

Investigators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that 12 people were fictitiously employed at the RANEPA institute. It was possible to identify violations during the investigation of the criminal case initiated against Rakova, accused of fraud.

According to the investigators, these employees “did not actually carry out any work in the educational organization, but at the same time they received regular salaries for a long time.”

Earlier, similar charges were brought against Rakova and Zak. As the police recalled, this criminal case was separated into a separate proceeding.