Dear Supporters

This update is a continuation of yesterday's one, which was about how deputy judge Mr Beltrami KC forbade me to continue the proceedings without lawyers and one of the reasons for this was that I exposed the collusion of my last lawyers (law firm CANDEY) with my opponents, Putin's oligarchs. This corruption story was used by Mr Beltrami KC not against those who committed a corruption crime (my opponents), but against me - the victim of this crime. If we draw an analogy, it is the same as if, for example, in the case of a robbery, the court would put in prison not the robber, but his victim and motivate his strange sentence by the fact that the victim provided evidence of the robbery (for example, made a video recording).

The hearing led by Mr Beltrami KC is filled with a big set of other oddities, enough for more than one update. Now I will focus on one such aspect that struck me to the core. The fact is that on this day (27 May 2022) I met for the first time in many years a person (Mr Beltrami KC), who was not surprised at all by the monstrous story of my relationship with the oligarchs - he did not see anything unusual in it.

Why am I focusing on this? The fact is that the history of the conflict is very long - 8 years, and during this time I retold it hundreds of times to different people: (1) numerous journalists, (2) officials in Europe who were considering my applications for refugee status and for termination of my international search and (3) just ordinary people. NEVER BEFORE – I EMPHASIZE THIS – ABSOLUTELY NEVER – HAVE I ENCOUNTERED SUCH A REACTION AS DEMONSTRATED BY MR. BELTRAMI KC. All the other listeners were expressing, at least, very strong surprise, called the story shocking, monstrous, unprecedented, deserving of a film adaptation or a novel, and the like. NOT ONCE HAS A SINGLE PERSON SAID THAT THERE IS NOTHING UNUSUAL IN MY STORY.

By the way, on the same day I was forced to tell the same story to another person, whom I also saw for the first time, namely the translator, whom I invited to help with interpretation at the hearing. Her reaction was natural (like all other people) – an incredible surprise that such things are possible in principle.

Next, I will first quote a fragment of the transcript of the hearing, and after that I will quote the corresponding fragment of the decision (by the way, the decision was written in advance). 

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So, a fragment of my speech:

“Permission [to act without lawyers] can be granted only in the case of a rare, well, as an exception on a rare case -- as an exception on rare or unusual case. While arguing in my skeleton application, I specified that my case is unusual and the whole story behind the case is unusual and quite rare. So the story behind the case is really bizarre. <...> Because of threats of murder, frankly. <…> So the defendants would openly threaten the claimant if he proceeds with his claim to kill him here in Latvia. And these threats have been recorded and the transcript of the records is added to statement number 11. So these are indeed shocking facts and the defendants are aware of the existence of these transcripts and they do not even deny their existence. Since then they have filed a lot of various documents. So they have known that information since 1st September, that there are transcripts of their threats -- direct threats. So being aware of the existing transcripts, they do not even deny the fact of those threats they used to make, and they do not even refer to those threats while promoting their interpretation of the situation. And this is just one episode which testifies to the fact how shocking their behaviour is. So they keep threatening me so that I refuse my claim and I consider it to be kind of an extortion. They want me to re-call my claim. They fabricated a criminal case against me in 2016 and it was an absolutely empty case -- a comical case. So they claim that I broke into their house, one of the defendants' houses and left there some anonymous documents. The documents containing my official claim signed by me before -- okay, so they fabricated a case based on their story that I got that claim signed by the notary and a lawyer and then cut off those signatures and left the document without those signatures in their home so that to extort money. So it is a totally bizarre, totally stupid case.

Okay, but the aim of that motion by them was to use the fabricated claim as an instrument of extortion against me. In March 2016, a team of law enforcement officers searched my personal home, they came there with a dog and a man on that team, the witnesses to this search, who happened to be associates of the defendant's company PhosAgro. They confiscated everything from my home, all computers, all documents and they served me a notice that after a week I would already become a defendant -- the accused in a criminal process, which indicated that I would be taken into custody very soon. Besides, they also seized my passport during that search. I think that having seized my passport they considered me to be their hostage. The thing is that I held another passport at that time which I had submitted to the British embassy for the receipt of the visa and that was a lucky occasion which really helped me escape those "defendants". The most interesting development happened after that seizure, after that search: I was contacted by a representative of the first defendant and he explained the situation to me saying that all that set-up was aimed at my reducing the sum of my claim by five times. And there was one more condition that I had to bribe the investigator on the case and the amount of the bribe had to be $4 million. So all those telephone conversations were recorded and transcribed and the transcripts are added to my statement number 11. The most outrageous and strange thing here is that the defendants do not even try to deny all this. They never refer to those motions by themselves ----

THE JUDGE: Can I ask you to bring this to a close because as I said earlier, we have to be very tight on time. So can I ask you to close in the next two or three minutes, please.

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Now the corresponding fragment of the judgment of Mr Beltrami KC: “First, I do not accept that Mr. Sychev has shown that this is a relevantly unusual case. <…> It cannot be enough for the purpose of the guidance simply to allege that the case has unusual features or even unique features, because of course many cases could be described in that way. <…> The first reason, as I say, is I do not accept that it has been shown, the burden must be on Mr. Sychev for these purposes, that this is a relevantly unusual case”.

From such a decision of Mr Beltrami KC, it follows that in English civil dispute courts, death threats from the defendant to the plaintiff with the demand to drop the lawsuit are found in many cases. Of course, I do not know all the judicial practice, but for some reason I am absolutely sure that nothing like this has ever happened before. Or at least I am absolutely sure that such things are certainly not common in judicial practice or occur in every second or fifth case. If such (shocking to absolutely everyone) things did not seem unusual to Mr Beltrami KC, then it is difficult for me to imagine what can be considered unusual – maybe when the defendant kills the plaintiff right in the courtroom?

The translator, who, like Mr Beltrami KC, heard this story for the first time that day, became speechless in surprise after voicing the decision by Mr Beltrami KC. 

Let me remind you that Mr Beltrami KC, as I found out later, turned out to be closely connected with the lawyers of my opponents, the oligarchs, and contrary to the requirements of the Guide to Judicial Conduct, did not disclose this information to me either before the hearing or during the hearing, depriving me of the opportunity to ask for his recusal.

Many thanks for your support,

Igor Sychev