Yury Chaika
Yury Chaika | |
---|---|
Yury Chaika, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation | |
5th Prosecutor General of Russia | |
Assumed office 23 June 2006 | |
President | Vladimir Putin |
Preceded by | Vladimir Ustinov |
Personal details | |
Born |
Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | 21 May 1951
Occupation | Lawyer |
Yury Yakovlevich Chaika (Russian: Юрий Яковлевич Чайка; born 21 May 1951) is the current Prosecutor General of Russia.
Career
Chaika began his career as an electrician in a shipyard. After serving in the army, he graduated from Sverdlovsk Institute of Law in 1976 and began work at Irkutsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office where he served as an investigator and a deputy district prosecutor. In 1983, he became head of the investigations at the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor's Office.
From 1984 to 1992, Chaika worked in various positions for the Irkutsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office, the regional Communist Party and the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor's Office. In 1992, he was appointed Irkutsk Oblast prosecutor.
In 1995, he became first deputy Russian prosecutor general. He was appointed by then Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov, his former classmate from Sverdlosk Institute of Law.[1] Following Skuratov's suspension, Chaika served as acting prosecutor general for a brief spell between April and August 1999. From August 1999 to June 2006, he served as justice minister.
On 23 June 2006, Chaika became Russian prosecutor general, effectively swapping jobs with his predecessor Vladimir Ustinov who took up the post of justice minister.[2]
A "Crown prosecutor" (likely a reference to Chaika) was mentioned in an email chain released on 11 July 2017 by the son of then Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, Don Jr, in regards to the Russian government and their alleged attempts to provide damaging information during the U.S. Presidential election of 2016. The email thread resulted in the Trump campaign–Russian meeting of June 2016.[3][4]
Notable cases
On 14 June 2006, the Prosecutor General's Office reported that it had reopened the "Three Whales" corruption investigation, a case in which nineteen high-ranking FSB (Federal Security Service) officers were allegedly involved in furniture smuggling cases, as well as illegally importing consumer goods from China. The mass media revealed that the officials dismissed around that time had worked in the Moscow and federal offices of the FSB,[5] the Prosecutor General's Office,[6] the Moscow Regional Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Customs Service and the Presidential Executive Office. Deputy heads of the FSB Internal Security Department also figured in the report authored by Viktor Cherkesov. The purge occurred while FSB head Nikolai Patrushev was on vacation.[7][8][9][10][11]
On 27 December 2006, he accused Leonid Nevzlin, a former vice president of Yukos, exiled in Israel and wanted by the Russian authorities for a long time, of involvement in Alexander Litvinenko poisoning, a charge dismissed by the latter as a nonsense.[12]
On 16 January 2007, Chaika announced that the Tambov Gang had recently forcefully taken over 13 large enterprises in Saint Petersburg and was subject to an investigation.[13][14] The leader of the gang, Vladimir Kumarin, was arrested on 24 August 2007. His associate and member of Putin's cooperative "Ozero" Vladimir Smirnov was dismissed from his position of Tekhsnabexport director.[15]
On 1 December 2015, Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) published a large investigation on Yuri Chaika, and his family. The Report comes with a 40-minute film Chaika.[16] An English version of the film was published on two months later.[17] On 3 February 2016, the group Pussy Riot released a satirical music video titled Chaika, alluding to Navalny's findings.[18]
On March 15, 2017, the Ministry of Justice in Russia filed a claim with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation seeking "to declare the religious organization, the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses, extremist, ban its activity, and liquidate it."[19] Yury Chaika will be heading the prosecution.
Awards
- Order of Honour (Armenia);
- Order of Friendship (Armenia) (2016);
Legal offices | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by Yury Skuratov |
Prosecutor General of Russia 2 April – 29 July 1999 |
Succeeded by Vladimir Ustinov |
Preceded by Vladimir Ustinov |
Prosecutor General of Russia 23 June 2006–present |
Incumbent |
Political offices | ||
Preceded by Pavel Krasheninnikov |
Justice Minister of Russia 17 August 1999 – 2 June 2006 |
Succeeded by Vladimir Ustinov |
Notes
- ↑ Gridneva, Marina (20 June 2006). "Что в прошлом у будущего генпрокурора". Moskovskiy Komsomolets.
- ↑ Official biography on Prosecutor General's website (in Russian)
- ↑ Becker, Jo; Goldman, Adam; Apuzzo, Matt (11 July 2017). "Russian Dirt on Clinton? 'I Love It,' Donald Trump Jr. Said". New York Times.
- ↑ Ioffe, Julia (11 July 2017). "What the Heck Is a Russian 'Crown Prosecutor'?". The Atlantic.
- ↑ Colonel General Sergei Shishin, former head of the Internal Security Directorate of FSB and current head of the FSB Activities Support Directorate, Colonel General Vladimir Anisimov, former head of the Internal Security Directorate of FSB, Lieutenant General Alexander Kupryazhkin, current head of the Internal Security Directorate.
- ↑ Prosecutors Dmitry Shokhin and Kamil Kashaev who had prosecuted YUKOS, head of the department for Investigations of High Importance Cases Vladimir Lyseiko, oversight directorates heads Alexander Kizlyk and Vladimir Titov.
- ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 May 2011. Retrieved 4 November 2010.
- ↑ Zapodinskaya, Ekaterina (20 September 2006). "Прокуроры ЮКОСа остались без работы [Prosecutors of YUKOS are left without work]". Kommersant.
- ↑ "Уволенные указом Путина генералы ФСБ продолжают работать [The FSB generals dismissed by Putin's decree continue to work]". Грани.Ру. 13 November 2006.
- ↑ Yasmann, Victor (26 September 2006). "Russia: Corruption Scandal Could Shake Kremlin". Radio Free Europe. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007.
- ↑ Gardham, Duncan (28 December 2006). "Oil billionaire named in Litvinenko inquiry". The Telegraph.
- ↑ "Тамбовская группировка захватила в Петербурге 13 предприятий". spbland.ru. 16 January 2007.
- ↑ "Генпрокурор: арестованы 27 членов тамбовской ОПГ". Archived from the original on 18 January 2007.
- ↑ "Что произошло с убийством Политковской". Echo of Moscow. 1 September 2007.
- ↑ "Russia's mafia state | Alexey Navalny's group publishes startling revelations linking the Attorney General's son to the mob". Meduza. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
- ↑ Navalny, Alexei (26 January 2016). "Chaika. An investigative documentary". Anti-Corruption Foundation – via YouTube.
- ↑ "Pussy Riot is back in high heels to tackle corruption". Deutsche Welle. 4 February 2016.
- ↑ "Russia's Ministry of Justice Moves to Ban Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia". 16 March 2017.