"Left everything to chance and took the money": the victim refused to demand the "bribe" back from former judge Nabiev.

      The Supreme Court of Tatarstan questioned the victim Intigam Dosmamedov — the former head of the PIZO of Tukaevsky District

      Photo: Dinar Fatykhov

      "Do you have any material claims?" — the only question the defendant today asked the victim was former chairman of the Mendeleevsky and Pestrechinsky courts Irek Nabiyev. The latter gave the Supreme Court of Tatarstan detailed testimony about how, thanks to his wife's work at the court, he met Nabiyev and later, under threat of criminal prosecution, handed him a bribe of 16 million rubles in two tranches. The Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office qualified this episode as a large-scale fraud, but Dosmamedov refused today to demand the money back, reports a journalist from Realnoe Vremya.

      Millions in a backpack

      In the voluminous indictment of the “fugitive” defector from the bench, the episode with the former head of the PIZO of Tukaevsky District and businessman Intigam Dosmamedov is listed as the seventh and final one. Yet it was precisely with his interrogation that the court trial in the high-profile case began today.

      To the republic’s Supreme Court the victim introduced himself as an unemployed native of Zainsk and a resident of Naberezhnye Chelny. He said that he had met the now-defendant Irek Nabiyev when Nabiyev headed the Mendeleevsky district court of Tatarstan, where Dosmamedov’s wife had worked in 2011–2012 as a court session secretary. The acquaintance was not close, but, as Dosmamedov later told investigators, Nabiyev once offered that he could be turned to for help if needed.

      In December 2017 the businessman learned that a probe was being conducted against him and some unidentified persons by the Naberezhnye Chelny branch of the Investigative Committee on the presence of fraud. “Allegedly about the illegal acquisition of plots,” Dosmamedov told the court, noting that he had served as head of the PIZO of Tukaevsky District in 2006–2008, and in 2017 and in 2012 (the year mentioned in the case materials about the alleged theft) he no longer worked in the authorities and had nothing to do with the allocation of 3.5 hectares in the village of Malaya Shilna.

      At the court interrogation Intigam Dosmamedov refrained from personal judgments of the defendant but answered all questions in detail.

      Irina Plotnikova / realnoevremya.ru

      “I understood that if a case was opened there would be searches, interrogations, detention, and I did not want that, so I turned to Nabiyev. I had no other acquaintances in law enforcement,” Dosmamedov recalled.

      According to him, the first meeting took place right in the judge’s office in January 2018, and at that very meeting Nabiyev promised to “try to resolve the issue for a certain reward.” The head of the court also named the sum of 16 million rubles, the victim reported. He also said that the judge did not tell him to whom the money would be handed over, how he intended to “resolve the issue” or within what timeframe; he only reassured him with general phrases that everything would be fine and warned of the possibility of actual prison time if there were delays in handing over the money.

      The first tranche — 3 million rubles — Dosmamedov said he handed to the chairman’s driver, Aleksey Kaimanov, in the garage at his house in Chelny — cash in 5,000-ruble notes in a bag. “That was Nabiyev’s instruction, that all negotiations go through him [Kaimanov]... Some time passed, and Nabiyev began asking about the remaining amount. He said that if there was no money, he would not be able to do anything,” the former Tukaevsky official clarified and recalled — before handing over the second tranche he met with the now-defendant in the Chelny café “Mrs. Udaча” [Mrs. Luck].

      When state prosecutor Dmitry Zaitsev read out the victim’s earlier testimony, it emerged that in exchange for the 16 million he had transferred part of his business to a partner.

      Artem Dergunov / realnoevremya.ru

      Soon, the victim continued, the required sum had been collected, and he, following instructions, went to Kaimanov’s house in his Lexus and handed him a backpack with 13 million rubles. He then drove with that load to the village of Pospelovo (Yelabuga District), where Irek Nabiyev pulled up to them on Pushkin Street in a Mercedes-Benz. In the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan, Dosmamedov insisted — when Kaimanov got out of the car, Nabiyev lowered his car window and the backpack was moved into his vehicle. Today Dosmamedov also confirmed his earlier Investigative Committee testimony that Nabiyev had gotten out of the car to receive the package via Kaimanov.

      Victim refuses civil suit

      State prosecutor Dmitry Zaitsev drew attention to another inconsistency in the testimony. In court Dosmamedov said that he had given his own money, while in the preliminary investigation he had stated that both the 3 million rubles and the additional 13 million had been found for him by a business partner named Popov (who was also implicated in 2018 in the criminal case about the alleged land fraud). In exchange for the received sum, Dosmamedov officially transferred his share in the joint business to the partner, with re-registration of documents in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRUL).

      “And what happened with the criminal case?” the prosecutor asked.

      “It also moved along — there were searches, interrogations, I spent two days in a detention cell, then they took the case to Kazan and dropped it on rehabilitating grounds,” the victim explained.

      To the next question, “Do you think Nabiyev did anything to get the case dropped?” he replied: “I don’t think so.”

      “Do you have any property claims against him?”

      “No.”

      “Will you file a civil suit?”

      “No...”

      Irek Nabiyev declared full guilt only in 2025 — after voluntarily returning from abroad.

      Dinar Fatykhov / realnoevremya.ru

      Apparently the defendant did not hear the last questions in the glass “aquarium.” Because the previously confessing-to-fraud Nabiyev, who admitted to receiving 16 million under the pretense of a bribe, deemed it necessary to repeat the question about the presence of material claims. The victim’s answer did not change. Presiding Judge Ilshat Tukhvatullin clarified: “There was no compensation [for the damage] from Nabiyev?” “No,” the businessman said.

      Dosmamedov recorded the meeting with the “cunning” man on his dictaphone

      According to the prosecution, both tranches of the pseudo-bribe were handed over no later than January 17, 2018 — exact dates are not established. It is known, however, that on January 17 of that year Dosmamedov was detained as a suspect, interrogated in the building of the Chelny department of the Investigative Committee, sent to a detention cell, and released two days later. There followed new searches, interrogations, confrontations, but after four months of investigation the case was dropped in the 2nd Department for Especially Important Cases of the Investigative Committee for Tatarstan for lack of a crime. It was established that the 3.5-hectare plot had been leased in 2010 to Elkhan Dosmamedov (Intigam’s father) for 49 years, that his son was no longer working in the executive committee at that time, and that the asset had not left municipal ownership, and therefore prosecuting the businessman and other participants in the transaction was unlawful.

      In court the victim described himself as unemployed.

      Irina Plotnikova / realnoevremya.ru

      However, in October 2018 searches were conducted again at the Dosmamedov home, but charges were never brought to court.

      Today, at the prosecution’s request, the Supreme Court read out two protocols of Intigam Dosmamedov’s interrogations: in September 2021 and September 2025, as well as the protocol of verifying his testimony on the spot. In them the victim, in particular, stated that from the very beginning he believed that the case against him had been opened illegally; besides the café “Mrs. Udacha” and the court reception he held “negotiations” with the now-accused at the Chelny café “Samolyot.” At one of the meetings the judge allegedly arrived in a foreign car without plates.

      “Nabiyev scared me. He said that I could get real imprisonment, and if I went back to my homeland, to Azerbaijan, they would put me on the wanted list,” Dosmamedov recalled to the Investigative Committee. Former driver of the Mendeleevsky court Aleksey Kaimanov earlier concluded a pre-trial agreement in the “Nabiyev case.”

      Irina Plotnikova / realnoevremya.ru

      He also said that at Nabiyev’s request Kaimanov found him a lawyer who “did nothing at the interrogation, but received 50,000 rubles from me.” The victim also shared details of a new meeting with the judge after the money was handed over and after he was released from the detention cell. According to him, Nabiyev was heading to Kazan, so they met on the M-7 highway at one of the gas stations. In response to the bribe-giver’s outrage about why this was happening to him, the bribe recipient reportedly said that everything was within the ordinary procedure of the investigation and that everything would be fine, the businessman told investigators.

      “I repeatedly turned to him through Kaimanov and tried to find out why this was happening, why the investigator was so aggressive and not willing to drop the case,” he complained, adding that when the prosecution was finally halted, he considered it his duty to report a new crime: “I realized that I had given money as a bribe, and voluntarily reported it.”

      Answering investigators’ questions about the alleged role of the former court chairman in getting the case dropped, the victim put it this way: “He let everything go and took money from me for it.” At the same time Intigam Dosmamedov shared details of his last meeting with Irek Nabiyev — a month before his resignation and subsequent departure abroad. Recall that in March 2020 law enforcement detained the nephew of the now-accused and two of his accomplices in the case of the abduction of the owner and director of the company “Kisher,” Vyacheslav Utrobin, who in September 2017 was doped with narcotics. They then, by forging documents, replaced the director in “Kisher” and withdrew almost 78 million rubles from the account. This bouquet of crimes is also charged to the elder Nabiyev, and at the moment he pleads guilty.

      At the trial the former judge hides his face behind a mask and is escorted by guards.

      Dinar Fatykhov / realnoevremya.ru

      On April 3, 2020, Nabiyev, according to Dosmamedov, called from an unfamiliar number and inquired where he was. The answer — “at the Investigative Committee in Kazan” — did not please him. He went to Chelny to a former subordinate, Dosmamedov’s wife, and warned her that her husband should not say anything at the interrogation.

      As the victim recalls, they arranged to meet with Nabiyev in Chelny on April 8 of that year. “I decided to turn on the voice recorder on the phone (I later handed the recording to the investigators, — editor’s note). Nabiyev tried to persuade me not to say anything about giving him money, saying that I, like him, was a Muslim. He used many interjections, gestured with his hands (perhaps precisely because he feared a recording, — editor’s note). He is generally by nature a very cunning, brazen person,” Dosmamedov told the investigator, repeating that because of Nabiyev he lost his share in the business — in exchange for the 16 million from Popov.

      When asked where that partner was now, the victim answered — he had moved to Italy or Spain.

      Some episodes of the Nabiyev case did not reach court — they were dropped due to the statute of limitations.

      Dinar Fatykhov / realnoevremya.ru

      Note that official operational-search measures against a serving or even retired judge could not be carried out in spring 2020. Consent of the Supreme Qualification Board of Judges of the Russian Federation was required to start an investigation. Moreover, during consideration of the corresponding petition by the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin in February 2022, the lawyer of Irek Nabiyev, who had left the country, categorically denied the accusations against him.

      Currently the defendant’s interests are represented by a court-appointed lawyer. As a result of the testimony read out, the defense had no questions for the victim. The trial will continue on January 20.

      Irina Plotnikova