Odyssey Moscow

1

The Accused

The Russian Investigative Committee headquarters are a cheaply constructed relic of the 1990s. Before we are allowed to enter, we have to pass through a temporary security checkpoint - a tiny, windowless kiosk outside the main entrance. Today the checkpoint is jam-packed with witnesses or detainees like me: about ten people, including a few FSB minders, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the dim space while paperwork is checked. No one makes eye contact; the tension is palpable, and the suffocating room reeks with sweat. After fifteen or twenty minutes, my documents are approved and I am led inside the investigators' fortified compound, surrounded by high, concrete walls topped with barbed wire.

The main building is a dreary place, with long corridors of closed, silent offices. It reminds me of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. There is an atmosphere of plodding but irresistible force, the kind that can slowly grind a stone into powder. It's the sort of place that instils not exactly fear, but hopelessness.

By the time our arrival is 'processed', it is about 2 or 3 p.m. I am left with my advocates (Dmitry has now been joined by a colleague) in the office of a major - the same investigator who has led the search of my apartment - while he goes for a long lunch. It is a small, typically cluttered office of a mid-level bureaucrat, with dusty wooden filing cabinets stuffed with towering stacks of official papers, accented with random personal knick-knacks including, incongruously, miniature gnomes and tiny mammoth tusks.

I learn from Dmitry that the investigators have been busy this morning. Several of my Baring Vostok colleagues - Vagan Abgaryan, Philippe Delpal and Ivan Zyuzin - have also endured house searches, as have Maxim Vladimirov, the CEO of PKB (another company involved in the dispute), and Alexey Kordichev, the former CEO of Vostochny. They are now all being questioned elsewhere in this same Investigative Committee building.

I am told that, when the major returns, I will be interrogated and a formal statement taken. My advocates remind me of some facts around the business deal in question, which is helpful as it all happened a couple of years ago and I don't have access to any files. The major appears and I give my statement, explaining that I wasn't involved personally in the deal since our funds had no relationship with IFTG, the company at its centre, but that I knew that it was profitable for Vostochny. I also lay out how our accuser, Sherzod Yusupov, had himself personally negotiated the transaction and approved it. I name two or three people and companies who I am sure have all of the relevant documentation and can prove that no crime was committed. We are allowed to check the statement for mistakes before it is printed and signed by all sides. By now, it is about 7 p.m.

In a rare gesture of humanity, I am allowed to make a single phone call using my advocate's mobile phone. I call my wife, Julia, who is back at home in the UK, where we have lived for the last ten years. She answers hesitatingly, no doubt nervous of a call from a phone number she doesn't recognise. I can tell immediately from her voice that she already knows what is going on. She must have been under incredible strain today, but she is an unbelievably strong woman - truly the foundation stone of my life. We both almost lose it during the call but when I start to cry, she quickly regains her composure. She tells me exactly what I need to hear: that our family depends on me staying strong. It is tough love at its best, sobering and true. We discuss how to explain what is happening to our three kids and agree to wait to see what tomorrow brings - it is still unclear whether we are being subjected to a savage negotiating tactic or whether they actually intend to charge and convict us. I tell her, of course, that she shouldn't come to Moscow, even though she wants to support me. I feel much stronger knowing that she and the kids are safe and out of reach of our enemies.

I have another couple of hours to wait before I am sent to an overnight detention centre. While I wait, a new investigator approaches me: a young man in his mid-30s dressed in a fashionable three-piece suit. Unlike the other officials I have met so far, he speaks very good English. Catching me in the corridor by the elevators, he asks how I am doing in these difficult circumstances. The question strikes me as odd and I suspect this is no chance encounter; he seems to be fishing for information. We have a brief and light conversation about some of the differences between America and Russia. He asks me, 'How much salary do American police investigators earn?' This is typical of the sort of question I often get in Russia, but I still find it ironic to hear in the corridors of Russia's Investigative Committee. I know what he is angling at, trying to show that his salary is a pittance compared to Americans in the same job. I tell him I don't know the figures, since I have never been directly in contact with America's criminal justice system, but I lowball a guess at $3,000 per month. He looks at me suspiciously, saying, 'Well, if that's all they get as salary, they probably get a lot of other benefits for free, like housing.' I realise there is no point trying to debate the subject as he clearly only wants his own prejudices confirmed. So, instead I simply change the subject.

Before long, I am put into handcuffs on the orders of the major, loaded into a cage in the back of a convoy truck and driven around Moscow for what seems like several hours, stopping occasionally to drop off or pick up other detainees. The cage, which I have to myself, is dark and it is impossible to see anyone else, though I can hear noises of at least three or four other prisoners locked in their own spaces. A wave of exhaustion from the stress of the day's events sweeps over me, so I try to close my eyes and rest, but it's impossible to find a comfortable position as the truck lurches and stops and starts abruptly, again and again. It is overheated too, as is often the case in Russian vehicles, so I swelter in my winter down jacket that I can't remove because of my handcuffs. Whenever someone is dropped off or picked up, the door opens for a few minutes, ushering in a swoosh of freezing Moscow air, initially refreshing but quickly leaving me shivering. Veering between sweltering and freezing for hours on end feels like another intentional punishment.

Finally, the truck stops and it is my turn to be led outside. We have arrived at a temporary detention centre for those awaiting trial. There are apparently several such facilities in Moscow, each about three or four storeys high and with space for between fifty and seventy-five cells. I have no watch and my sense of time is off, but I gather it is well after midnight. I am ordered to take off my clothes and I'm searched from head to toe. They confiscate anything that might be either useful to me (like a pen and paper) or dangerous (my shoelaces and belt). When I have redressed, they lead me to a small cell, no more than 3m by 4m and containing three beds. Apart from that, there is one small shelf, an ancient metal teapot for boiling water, a sink, and a toilet area in the corner - in fact, just a filthy hole in the floor with a metre-high cardboard screen on two sides.

There are already two prisoners in the cell. I am initially apprehensive about how they'll receive me but I don't have to worry for long. One of them, Sasha, a barrel-chested Russian bear about 40 years old, immediately introduces himself. The other, Ildar, is a short, wiry Chechen in his early 20s. He is more reticent, not moving from his bed and only nodding vaguely to acknowledge me. When I tell them my name, Sasha asks where I am from. 'No way!' he says when I tell him. 'A real American? That's amazing!' They ask how I have ended up here. I decide to give them the short version. Then Sasha asks, 'Kakaya u tebya beda?', which literally means 'What is the source of your trouble?' (The closest expression in America would be 'What are you in for?') It is the first of many times I am asked this question in the prison system. I check the paperwork given to me by the investigator, then tell Sasha I'm here on a charge of 159.4, 'fraud of large scale'. 'That's really cool!' he replies. He wants to know how much money is involved. I decide to downplay the figures so as not to appear too wealthy or grand. I tell him it's a dispute over a loan of 2.5 million roubles ($33,000), a factor of 1,000 times less than the real number. Sasha nevertheless strokes his chin and nods his head gravely, as if to acknowledge what a huge sum this is.

Sasha goes on to tell me his life story. He is a gregarious companion and takes pride in being able to show a foreigner the ropes of life inside. I learn that he's been married three times, in prison five times previously, and has been arrested this time for stealing someone's mobile phone. In between spells in prison, he works in the building trade installing windows. But, he tells me, it is hard to make a living this way, what with bills to pay and wives and everything else - you just can't get ahead. In comparison with life on the outside, he reassures me, prison isn't so bad. You don't have any bills to pay and you get to watch TV most of the day. But of course, he says, it all depends on which prison you are sent to. According to his own insider ratings of Russia's most famous prisons, he considers the...