The lawyers of the arrested rector of “Shaninka” Sergei Zuev filed a petition for his release after Putin’s statement at a meeting of the HRC

Lawyers for Shaninka’s rector, Sergei Zuev, who was arrested in the embezzlement case, filed a motion for his release. About it informs Novaya Gazeta, referring to petitions sent to the Moscow city prosecutor Denis Popov, the head of the Russian MIA General Administration for Moscow, Oleg Baranov, the Acting Head of the Main Investigation Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Directorate, Alexander Galitsky, and investigator Yegor Karabanov, who is conducting a criminal case against Zuev.

According to the newspaper, the defense asks to release Sergei Zuev from the pre-trial detention center on recognizance not to leave the place and proper behavior or to choose a milder measure of restraint, not related to detention.

The lawyers cite extracts from the latest medical report on Zuev’s condition in the petition, which states that he has chronic and progressive diseases that lead to complications of the heart, brain and kidneys. In addition, according to the document, the rector of “Shaninka” is currently experiencing problems associated with insufficient blood circulation, and is experiencing daily hypertensive crises due to high blood pressure.

In the conclusion of the medical commission, it is noted that in this state, Zuev has a risk of amputation of the lower limb, as well as the onset of extensive myocardial infarction, which “will lead to death without surgical intervention.”

The decision to submit the petition was made after the statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the Human Rights Council, which took place the day before. Putin noted that he did not consider it necessary to keep Zuev under arrest in a pre-trial detention center. 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.

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.