Dear Supporters
The update of 26 August contained the text of my official open letter to the judge of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Bean. This week I received an official notification from the court that it refuses without any reasonable explanation to accept this letter I sent through a special form on the court website (case CA-2022-001211-B).
As a continuation of that update, I am posting for everyone to see the text of my application in the framework of this case (CA-2022-001211-B), which was being considered by Mr Justice Bean. This application is a complaint against previous decisions of the same Mr Justice Bean and I have requested that this complaint be considered by another judge. However, this complaint fell into the hands of the same judge, and he did not transfer it to another judge (although he could do this) and began to consider the complaint against himself.
The essence of the complaint is as follows. In previous decisions, Mr Justice Bean prohibited me from representing the plaintiffs at the hearings, citing the fact that I was making allegations of “wrongdoing” by Russian oligarch (defendants) and suggesting that all my statements could theoretically turn out to be unfounded (not a single such statement was considered on the merits by Mr Justice Bean, who simply assumed that all of them, without exception, may be unfounded).
In a very laconic decision dated 11 August, Mr Justice Bean wrote that the new circumstances described in my complaint about the “wrongdoing” of the Russian oligarchs, shocking any person, are totally without merits. Moreover, Mr Justice Bean wrote that if I would repeat my arguments, a civil restraint order will be issued against me.
It hurts the eyes that Mr Justice Bean did not, in his super concise decision, even briefly name the circumstances to which I referred and which are allegedly totally without merits.
As anyone can now see, these circumstances were the following:
- Initiation, after the previous decisions of Mr Justice Bean, of a criminal investigation in England in connection with information about ordering my assassination by the Russian oligarchs (Defendants) in connection with these proceedings. The same information contains the second important part - about the total corruption by these oligarchs in the British courts in order to pervert the course of justice. Paragraphs G to T.
- The initiation, after the previous decisions of Mr Justice Bean, of a criminal case in Latvia on the facts of numerous death threats made against me with demands to drop the lawsuit. Paragraphs 43-53.
- Confirmation by the Latvian police of the facts of attempts to kill me in a publically dangerous way. Paragraphs 54-62.
- The initiation, after all previous court decisions, of an investigation by the competent authority against my last lawyers, whose strange actions led me to suspect that they had colluded with the oligarchs. Paragraphs 21-42.
- Public information about the "wrongdoing" of these oligarchs. For example, death threats against another person in connection with another lawsuit. Paragraphs 77-81.
I excluded from the text only a small part that concerns the facts of "wrongdoing" in relation to one more person (paragraph 71). Believe me, these facts are no less shocking and are connected with such an oligarch from PhosAgro, about whom the Ukrainian authorities wrote the following to justify the sanctions: “Vladimir Litvinenko owns about 21% of Russian chemical company PhosAgro listed in London. Since 1994, Litvinenko has been the rector of Saint Petersburg Mining University, where he mentored Vladimir Putin. The allotment of PhosAgro shares to Litvinenko is widely seen as a bribe to Putin”.
I believe that the decision of Mr Justice Bean of 11 August is knowingly illegal and that it is the result of the activities of Russian oligarchs aimed at perverting the course of justice (see above). I cannot explain otherwise that the initiation of a number of investigations after the previous decisions of Mr Justice Bean is, in his opinion, totally without merits in the context that absolutely all my statements about the “wrongdoing” of Putin’s oligarchs may theoretically turn out to be unfounded. Initiating investigations, the competent authorities have become convinced that there were more than good reasons for this.
Many thanks for your support!
Igor Sychev
Since the text of the application is long, I will publish it in several parts, today – part 3. The full text is available here. Parts 1 and 2 are here and here.
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My application in case CA-2022-001211-B (part 3)
Second new circumstance
43. The second important event occurred on 3 October 2022, i.e. the day Mr Justice Bean made a decision on my first application under CPR 52.30. I was informed of this event only on the next day, 4 October. I mean the fact that the police of Latvia, opened a criminal case on the facts of numerous death threats made against me and even my children (IS(A)2/154-174).
44. The initiation of this criminal case confirms two extremely important circumstances at once: (1) the presence of death threats (this issue will be discussed in paragraphs 45-53 below), as well as (2) the fact that the Latvian police agreed that they had tried to kill me in Russia, and - most shockingly - in a publically dangerous way (this issue will be discussed in paragraphs 54-62 below).
Confirmation of multiple facts of death threats
45. The incomplete list of the death threats under investigation contains more than 100 (!!!) positions (Schedule 2) and includes two types of threats:
(a) Anonymous (emails from fake addresses about my funeral, anonymous messages in instant messengers, calls from "one-time" phone numbers, etc.) – lines 28-36 and 38-86 of the list of threats under investigation.
(b) Non-anonymous death threats (i.e. threats made by specific persons whose identities are known) – lines 1-27 and 37. All non-anonymous death threats were accompanied by property demands to me:
(i) related to these proceedings (to drop this lawsuit[17] or assign the Claimants' rights to those who threatened[18]), or
(ii) in the case of death threats that were made prior starting of these proceedings, the demands were either to a five-fold reduction in the amount of the Defendants' obligations to me, or to a complete dropping of my financial claims at all[19]. One of two claims, combined in these proceedings, is precisely these obligations (the so-called Share Agreement).
46. An important point that I would like to draw your attention to in the context of this event is that the Latvian criminal case was initiated based on my application, which was initially addressed to the UK police (IS(A)2/175-176). I applied to the UK police since the death threats were related to these UK proceedings. However, the London Police referred me to the Latvian Police in accordance with a certain procedure governing the investigation of cross-border crimes.
47. Separately (as I consider it important in the context under consideration) I would like to draw attention to the fact that I have referred to the death threats and extortion under these threats in my written[20] and oral[21] submissions for both Mr Beltrami KC and Mr Justice Bean[22]. At the same time, I gave exactly the same evidence and arguments that became the reasons for initiating a criminal case on the facts of numerous death threats. However, my evidence and arguments were not considered in any court decision, and even more so, the reasons why they were rejected were not indicated.
48. It is also important to note that the Latvian police, the body competent to analyze these issues on their merit, unlike Mr Beltrami KC, had more than enough time to do so. The initiation of a criminal case was preceded by a six-month pre-investigation check. After such a long and careful study, the police have confirmed that numerous death threats had been made against me and opened the criminal case.
49. Thus, this fact alone refutes the Judge's main and quite extreme premise that all my accusations may be theoretically wrong. I call it extreme (and extremely profitable for the Defendants), because there are two other theoretical possibilities: (1) that all my accusations may be true, or (2) that at least some of them may be true.
50. At the same time, the example of criminality, existence of which has been admitted by the Latvian police, is one of the most shocking and at the same time dotting the i’s in the situation as a whole.
51. The shocking nature of the threats is confirmed both by their content (some of them are addressed even to my children) and by the number (more than 100).
52. The flow of threats does not stop and, moreover, has intensified right now, when the Court of Appeal is considering this case and two others related to it. I hardly have time to send information to the police about new and new threats. Only in April-May of this year (that is, during less than two last months) I received at least 30 threats recognized as such by the Latvian police. Please also see paragraphs A to T above.
52.1. I was also forced on 12[23], 25[24], 28[25] April, 11 and 19 May[26] to inform the Court and the Defendants' solicitors about the flow of threats, but even after that, the threats did not stop. I will quote paragraphs 7 and 8 of the letter of 25 April: “I am sure that neither the police of Latvia, nor the English courts (even more so, within the framework of civil proceedings) have ever encountered something like this, when the scale of the threats is simply amazing and cannot help but shock. It will probably be more correct to say that within the framework of civil proceedings, the courts have probably never encountered cases where the defendant threatens the plaintiff with murder, in principle”.
53. The conclusion from the story of the death threats is as follows - the story of threats dots i’s in the dispute considered in these proceedings, since these threats, especially accompanied by demands to drop the lawsuit or assign it to the threatening ones, are very eloquent evidence of the existence of the obligations of the Defendants, as well as English jurisdiction. I cannot even come up with a more eloquent proof. No adequate defendant will threaten the plaintiff with murder and demand that the lawsuit be dropped if the lawsuit is wrong in the merits and/or filed in the wrong jurisdiction.
Confirmation by the Latvian police of the facts of attempts to kill me in Russia
54. In these proceedings, I have repeatedly referred to the fact that (1) attempts to kill me were made in Russia (committed in a generally dangerous way); (2) Russian law enforcement agencies, having proved the fact of the attempts, refuse to investigate them; and (3) the Defendants (in particular, the First One), denying his involvement in the attempts, nevertheless, for reasons unexplained from the point of view of common sense, demanded from me orally and even in writing (through PhosAgro's lawyer Mr Lashevich), so that I withdraw the crime report about the attempts to kill.
55. If we talk about the witness statement of Mr Stepanov (who at that time was my lawyer and provided legal assistance, including in connection with the attempts to kill me), paragraphs 7-9, 14-19, 70-74 are devoted to these attempts and the illegal refusal of Russian law enforcement agencies to investigate the attempts.
56. The initiation of the criminal case in Latvia on death threats confirms not only the existence of these threats, but also the facts of attempts to kill. The fact is that Section 132 of the Criminal Law of Latvia is formulated as follows:
“Section 132. Threatening to Commit Murder and to Inflict Serious Bodily Injury
For a person who commits threatening to commit murder or to inflict serious bodily injury, if there have been reasonable grounds to fear that these threats may be carried out”
57. As I wrote above, the initiation of the criminal case was preceded by a very long pre-investigation check. The long term is explained not by the fact that the police had difficulties with the facts of death threats (they are obvious to any average person), but by the fact that during this long period, it was being found out whether there were “reasonable grounds to fear that these threats may be carried out”. It is this aspect that is much more complex and time-consuming.
58. As a result, the criminal case was initiated only after the police, as well as the prosecutor's office, agreed that this condition was met in this case, precisely for the reason that attempts to kill me had already been made in Russia. At the same time, I provided the police with the same set of documents (mainly expert opinions) that I submitted in the framework of these proceedings (IS(A)2/187-310). This set consists of 9 documents, each of which individually (and even more so altogether) confirms that the causes of the incidents, disguised as accidents, were the actions of criminals.
59. In particular, this set includes five expert opinions (documents 1-5), one of which (No. 5) was prepared on the instructions of the investigative authorities. Four other documents (6 to 9) are letters from the car dealer and car manufacturer, as well as an explanatory letter from the expert institution that prepared the conclusion on the instructions of the investigative authorities. Letter No. 9 from the car manufacturer Nissan is also a response to the request of the investigative authorities.
60. Document 4 confirms that those who ordered and executed these crimes were well aware that not only I could suffer from these crimes, but an unlimited number of people, including completely random ones. Most of all, I was struck exactly by this fact - that the experts confirmed that the criminals were aware that the wheels could fly off (and the brakes could fail) at any time and that as a result, not only I could be injured, but also people who happened to be nearby. I might have run into a crowd of people at a pedestrian crossing, for example, or hit a school bus.
61. In Russia, such crimes are punishable by up to life imprisonment and even the death penalty (Article 105(2)(e) of the Criminal Code). Since the crimes were not successful (no one has been killed) due to circumstances beyond the control of the criminals, the liability is provided for up to 15 years of imprisonment (Article 66(3) of the Criminal Code).
62. I would also like to draw the Court's attention to the following circumstance. The story of death threats and attempted murders has recently attracted the attention of the English, American and Latvian press. In particular, publications devoted to this were published in January in the USA and February in the UK (two articles - IS(A)2/317-330 and 331-349). But the most important thing is not even in this, but in the fact that there were no attempts on the part of the Defendants to refute the information that became public or at least to comment (at least, in the form of bare denial). I will also note that information about this was published in the Russian and European press much earlier (in 2016-2018) and the Defendants also did not take any measures or make any comments regarding these publications.
Third new circumstance
63. The third most important event that occurred after the decisions on the Representation Application and confirmed their wrongness occurred on 10 October 2022. I mean, that on this day, Professor of Law, Doctor of Law, founder of the Free University, one of the most famous Russian lawyers and human rights activists, Russian politician and public figure, member of the Anti-War Committee of Russia, Elena Lukyanova, at my request, prepared on pro bono terms a legal opinion[33] confirming some of my allegations against the Defendants' experts.
64. I was not able to provide this opinion earlier because, unlike the Defendants, who have actually unlimited financial resources and provided the opinions of five experts at once, I am unable to pay for the services of experts.
65. It is important to note that I was not personally acquainted with Professor Lukyanova, and it took me more than one month to find her contacts (she, like me, now lives in Latvia), to get acquainted, to explain the details of the case, taking into account her super-busy schedule.
66. At the same time, I understood that, given that two of the Defendants' experts are professors, the status of an expert on my part should be at least not lower than their status. In this sense, Professor Lukyanova surpasses all the experts of the Defendants both in her fame not only in Russia, but also in the world, and in her work experience, which is impressive (for example, she worked for many years in the State Duma of the Russian Federation as an expert).
To be continued.