Moscow court refuses house arrest for investigator in Lerchek jewellery case

Moscow's Basmanny court rejected investigators' request to place Nikita Tulupov (Никита Тулупов) under house arrest in connection with missing jewellery seized from blogger Valeria Chekalina (Валерия Чекалина), known as Lerchek. Kommersant and RBC reported the ruling on October 9, citing the Moscow City Court press service. Vedomosti also reported the refusal and said Tulupov denies guilt. [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]

The reports describe Tulupov as accused of exceeding official powers under Article 286 of Russia's Criminal Code. Kommersant identified him as an investigator in the police directorate for Moscow's Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative districts. An earlier RIA Novosti report said the court had received materials concerning a requested restriction. Its lead referred to house arrest, but the quoted court source referred to custody. The later reports consistently described a rejected request for house arrest. [ 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]

According to the Interior Ministry's account carried by RIA and Vedomosti, some seized valuables were not attached to the criminal case as evidence and were stored in violation of the rules, leading to their loss. RIA put the loss at about 14.4 million roubles. Vedomosti, citing Izvestia, said a Rolex watch and Bulgari bracelet worth that amount had disappeared from the investigator's office safe. RIA reported that documents in its possession described 22 sets of jewellery taken during the search. [ 1 , 3 ]

Kommersant's supplied article also says Moscow prosecutors cancelled the decision to open the case, but the attribution in that passage is incomplete and the other supplied documents do not confirm the report. The outlet reported the defence's position that the seized jewellery had not been registered as evidence or subjected to seizure measures and that the investigator had repeatedly refused to return it. [ 4 ]