Former Governor of Russia's Khabarovsk Territory Sergey Furgal, charged as part of a criminal probe, said on Thursday that he was pressured to confess under threats of arrest for his ex-wife and daughter
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd September, 2020) Former Governor of Russia's Khabarovsk Territory Sergey Furgal, charged as part of a criminal probe, said on Thursday that he was pressured to confess under threats of arrest for his ex-wife and daughter.
"There was an illegal pressure to reach a pretrial agreement and get my confession. The investigator called me and offered to conclude the pretrial agreement in the absence of my lawyers ... He threatened to bring my daughter and ex-wife to justice under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation [fraud] and place them in Lefortovo [prison]. I see this as a powerful psychological pressure," Furgal said at the Moscow City Court.
Furgal was detained on July 9 as part of the probe into an organized criminal group involved in the killings of entrepreneurs Yevgeny Zorya and Oleg Bulatov, as well as the attempted murder of Alexander Smolsky in the Khabarovsk Territory and the Amur Region in 2004-2005. The Moscow City Court arrested him for two months. The politician is kept in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center and pleads not guilty to the charges brought against him.
