Interfax: Top Russian law enforcer: property confiscation essential in fighting corruption

MOSCOW. Jan 20 (Interfax) – The head of Russia’s top criminal investigation agency has proposed bringing back a law recommending the confiscation of the property of people convicted of corruption.

“This is the most effective sanction for preventing corruption,” Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin said in an interview with Russian government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta to appear in the paper’s issue for Tuesday.

Bastrykin had already come up with the initiative at a meeting of State Duma deputies at the Investigative Committee early last month.

“I can’t understand what prevents the lawmakers from giving consideration to this matter. It isn’t a political problem, it’s a problem of political will,” he said.

Bastrykin said any anti-corruption action is a sheer imitation without property confiscation as a penalty.

The Committee is proposing one more anti-corruption measure – confiscation from relatives of a person convicted of corruption of property that has been acquired illegally and handed over to them free of charge regardless of whether the recipient was or was not aware of the criminal origin of such property.

Under today’s Article 104.1 of the Criminal Code, such property can only be confiscated if its recipient was aware or should logically have been aware of its illegal acquisition, Bastrykin pointed out.