Popov's defense asked to summon the chief of the General Staff Gerasimov to court

The official defender of the former commander of the 58th army Ivan Popov, Sergei Buinovsky, petitioned to summon the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov for questioning as a witness. This was announced today, September 3, by the well-known Russian military blogger Yuri Podolyaka, posting a screen of the document.

"For a comprehensive, complete and objective study of all the evidence in the criminal case, as well as to confirm the innocence of Popov I.I. in the act incriminated to him, we filed a petition to summon the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, Army General Gerasimov V.V., as a defense witness, who can confirm the essential circumstances in this criminal case, including The investigator has not yet informed us about the results of consideration of our petition for questioning Gerasimov V.V., at present we have filed a complaint to the higher leadership of the Investigative Committee, while there is no response," the petition says.

At the same time, Buinovsky notes that the investigation, for unknown reasons, does not give any answer about his petition and he is forced to complain to the head of the SU GVSU TFR, Major General of Justice Oleg Sokhrin.

"What allows Sergei Buinovsky to publicly ask the question — will there be at least formal signs of an "independent" investigation in this case or not? — Yuri Podolyaka is indignant. "Or the case of General Popov, where all boundaries have already been violated, not even decency, but SHAME, will finally turn into a shameful contract trial of a popular general."

As EADaily reported, Major General Ivan Popov was arrested back in May on charges of embezzlement on an especially large scale — 1.7 thousand tons of metal worth more than 130 million on July 15, he was placed under house arrest. However, he does not admit his guilt and wants to return to the war zone.

On August 20, the general's lawyer, Sergei Buinovsky, said that Popov's signature on the documents in the criminal case turned out to be fake — it was on them that the prosecution was based. According to the lawyer, the handwriting examination, appointed on the initiative of the TFR, confirmed this fact. Thus, the examination proved the innocence of his client and all the evidence in the case is circumstantial. There was no reaction from the court and the prosecutor's office to this statement.