Nearly 600 Russian officials who had enjoyed relative immunity from prosecution have been prosecuted on corruption charges during the first nine months of 2011, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily newspaper in an interview published Friday.
“There are no untouchables for the Investigative Committee,” Bastrykin told the daily, referring to legislators, judges, prosecutors, mayors and investigators. To prosecute these officials, special permission has to be granted by relevant higher officials or institutions.
One such case involved the Chief of the Main Military Medical Directorate of the Russian Defense Ministry General Alexander Belevitin. He and one of his colleagues, Colonel Alexei Nikitin, were detained under suspicion of corruption in June 2011.Both Belevitin and Nikitin are now in jail awaiting trial on February 8, 2012. They could spend up to 12 years in prison if found guilty of the charges.
Bastrykin said that out of 594 such officials prosecuted in the first nine months of 2011, 59 were Interior Ministry officers, nine investigators from his own agency, eight drug policemen, 200 members of regional and municipal legislators, 208 mayors, 16 prosecutors, four judges and 49 defense attorneys.
In its latest annual corruption index released on December 1, the international corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Russia 143rd out of 182 surveyed countries, putting it on par with Uganda and Nigeria.
According to various public opinion surveys, Russians have consistently named corruption among the biggest threats to the country's development over the past several years.
President Dmitry Medvedev has made fighting corruption one of his main policy goals in 2010, having pushed several bills though the State Duma since that would require a broader category of officials and their family members to declare their incomes. However, the parliament consistently blocks legislative initiatives that would oblige officials to declare their expenditure.
In a May 2011 poll conducted by the respected Levada Center think tank, 52 percent of respondents said that there is more corruption among senior officials in Russia today than there was in the 1990's, compared to just 16 percent who gave that response in 2007.
