Dear Friends, Supporters and Potential Supporters

Thank you very much for your help in overcoming another important milestone for Change.org of 7500 signatures! 

                                           The first important update

I see that some Supporters make small donations to distribute my petition. It is very helpful and I am very grateful for this. Today I mustered up the courage to ask for financial support in a broader sense. I have created fundraising pages on two platforms: here and here. Or, if it's more convenient:

• https://igg.me/at/O8Jd7O9U1DU/x/30950752#/ 
• https://www.justgiving.com/page/igor-sychev-1670318133824?utm_source=copyLink&utm_medium=one_page&utm_content=page/igor-sychev-1670318133824&utm_campaign=pfp-share&utm_term=3c72a18707bf45a884d70fbd9ca9b604 

I called my fundraising campaign “Incredible meanness of Putin's cronies towards me”, and the brief description made like this: “I need support in my unequal and 6-year battle with Putin's oligarchs who made me actually a beggar”.

My story for potential donators starts like this:

• “The story that forced me to turn to you for help is the story of the incredible meanness on the part of Putin's oligarchs (owners of PhosAgro), whom I saved from ruin and prison before they became close to Putin. According to their own calculations, I brought these oligarchs a profit in the amount of about $ 1 billion. As a "reward" for this, they fraudulently deceived me, not only by not paying what we agreed on, but also with the help of fraudulent tricks making me owe them millions of dollars.
• The history of the conflict has been going on for 8 years, and these “grateful” oligarchs during this time have done everything possible to turn my life into a real hell. "Thanks" to them, I have been forced to flee from Russia to a country completely unknown to me then. I have lost my home, my family, my friends, that is, my whole life, and I also spent all the money on legal expenses. Now I am practically a beggar, but I continue to defend my rights in the English court”.

I need money not only to maintain a minimum standard of living, but also to pay for the very substantial fees for me to file appeals against decisions already made (the fee for filing one appeal is more than 500 pounds, and I have to file several). These costs are simply unbearable for me.

Please note, that the conditional amounts are indicated on my fundraising pages, I will be very grateful for any (even symbolic) donations.

                                  The second important update

Change.org promises that once the petition reaches 7,500 signatures, it is likely to be noticed by its addressees. In the petition, I ask for the following:

"I demand that the British authorities conduct a full-fledged investigation of the activities of these Russian oligarchs, which have all the signs of serious crimes falling under English jurisdiction. In particular, I demand:

• Investigating numerous demands to drop the English lawsuit (or assign rights to it) under death threats, which according to English law is extortion, responsibility for which is provided for up to 14 years in prison. The death threats themselves, even if they are not accompanied by property demands, are a serious crime under English law, the penalty for which is up to 10 years in prison.
• Investigating bribery by the Russian oligarchs of my British lawyers (Candey firm), which is a very serious crime both for those who gave a bribe (the Russian oligarchs) and for those who took it (Candey firm).
• Investigating why exactly Mr Beltrami KC has been appointed as the judge who made the fateful decision and why he did not recuse himself and did not even disclose to me information about his close ties with the lawyers of the Russian oligarchs.

I am sure that if the illegal activities of Putin's super-rich oligarchs in the UK do not receive a proper legal assessment from the British authorities, it will provoke them to further illegal actions and undermine faith in British public institutions. This lawlessness must be stopped!" 

                                      Very important comment

Separately, I want to comment on the last point (about deputy judge Mr Beltrami KC), who actually made the fateful decision, forbidding me to continue my case without lawyers, knowing that (1) I cannot pay for lawyers' services, and (2) knowing that the Russian oligarchs had previously bribed my lawyers (the firm Candey) who agreed to work on a pay-after-win basis.

The fact is that the strange story with Mr Beltrami KC had an almost unbelievable continuation. He has been also appointed as a judge for the next hearing, which had nothing to do with the one he held before. When I found out about this coincidence, I applied for his recusal, referring to his ties with the lawyers of the defendants, which, contrary to mandatory requirements, he did not disclose before the first hearing which became fateful. Mr Beltrami KC agreed to recuse himself from the second hearing, which can be considered at least indirect evidence that he was not impartial at the first hearing either.

But the biggest oddity in this story is that the mathematical probability of such a coincidence (when the same judge is appointed for two unrelated hearings) is only 0.1%. This probability is calculated very easily based on the number of judges in the Commercial Court of the High Court (approximately 30). With this number of judges, to calculate the mathematical probability of such a coincidence, we need to multiply 1/30 by 1/30 and we get 1/900 or 0.1%.

Doubting the random nature of what is happening, in July I sent an official letter to the court's leadership with a request to check how it happened and whether such luck for the oligarchs was indeed just accidental. Since I have not received an answer, I am now addressing the same question publicly. The text of my letter is available here. This letter also describes the colossal lobbying capabilities of my opponents in Britain (they have contacts even with members of the Royal Family).

This is not the only question that remains unanswered by the leadership of the court. The second question without any reaction is the following: why is my case on the court website actually classified? If for all cases that do not have an officially assigned status of closed to the public (my case does not have such a status), anyone on the court website for 11 pounds can download any document from the case materials, then my case on the court website in the section for public search is completely empty. This state of affairs is very strange and beneficial, of course, to my opponents - Putin's oligarchs (unlike them, I have nothing to hide).

And finally, how did it happen that on the day of the hearing, when Mr Justice Picken, repeatedly referring to the previous and fateful decision of Mr Beltrami KC, issued a decision that effectively terminated the proceedings without consideration on the merits, inexplicable things were happening in the courthouse with an electronic information system? On the screens in the court lobby with the schedule of today's cases, my case was not indicated at all, and the screen in front of courtroom 29 also did not work. As a result, even I, being a direct participant in the hearing, was able to find out with great difficulty where the hearing would take place.

I hope that after this public appeal, the leadership of the court will answer questions about all these oddities and coincidences, which have already accumulated a lot and to which I have not received an answer.

Many thanks,

Igor Sychev