On Monday, April 26, investigators of the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Nikolai Kondrat. The son of the former Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Ivan Kondrat and the judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court Elena Kondrat is accused of organizing two murders, which only by chance were not brought to a tragic ending. The details of the incident were reported to Izvestia by the operatives of the criminal investigation department. This is not the first crime 20-year-old Nikolai Kondrat is suspected of committing. On December 21, 2020, he was detained by law enforcement officers in the case of the murder of his driver. The young man faces a serious sentence – up to life imprisonment, lawyers explain. According to a law enforcement source, high-ranking parents are trying to hush up Nikolai’s case, using their connections – they have repeatedly appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation with a request to conduct supervisory checks, but the prosecutors did not find grounds for dismissing the case.
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Mafia game
According to investigators, Nikolai Kondrat planned the first murder in September last year. The target was a young businesswoman Tatyana Petrova (name changed for ethical reasons), whose business was associated with public procurement for municipal and state needs. Things were going well, the girl won the lion’s share of contracts for catering during city events, which made it difficult to receive similar tenders for Nikolai’s beloved Maria Shalamova – she was engaged in the same business.
According to the SPARK database, over five years of entrepreneurial activity, Tatyana won 94 contracts for 46 million rubles, the customers are municipal authorities of different districts of Moscow.
Nikolai decided to help his friend cope with the rival, a law enforcement source told Izvestia. He chose a radical way – murder.
The second person whose murder, according to the investigation, was ordered by Nikolai Kondrat, was Mikhail Ivanov (name changed for ethical reasons), the owner of an office center in Moscow, from whom Nikolai rented premises.
Photo: Izvestia / Dmitry Korotaev
– In fact, the guy did not have any business. He seemed to be imagining himself a mafioso – he was sure that in this life everything was allowed to him and nothing would come to him for it. Thanks to the high status of my parents, I felt my absolute impunity, – the interlocutor of Izvestia admitted.
The investigation believes that the decision to kill Mikhail was also made for selfish motives – in order to take possession of the office center.
– The guy, apparently, tired of paying rent for his office, and he decided to take possession of the entire premises. To do this, he came up with the idea of killing the owner, and making the sale and purchase transaction through a dummy, but according to the owner’s documents, having previously made up him so that he looked like Ivanov, the source clarified.
The perpetrator of both murders was Nikita Matsnev, a close acquaintance of Nikolai. According to Izvestia, the man born in 1996 had not been previously convicted, but had credit debts. To spy on both victims, according to the editorial source, Nikolai Kondrat personally bought special trackers and handed them over to Matsnev so that he could install the equipment on the cars of Petrova and Ivanov. A knife was chosen as the murder weapon, the victims had to be watched around the house and a robbery had to be staged.
As the investigation established, in order to cover up his tracks, to buy a knife for the murder of Tatyana Matsnev went to Ryazan. Fortunately, it was not possible to fulfill the plan – he was detained on suspicion of organizing another murder. Alas, carried through to the end.
Purely Moscow murder
On October 2, 2020, Nikolay Kondrat’s Toyota Camry car was stopped on Kutuzovsky Prospekt by traffic police officers. His driver Kirill Igitkhanyan was driving. He showed the police an investigator’s identity card and a special “non-check” coupon, allowing the holder of such a document to avoid checks on the roads.
The identity card and the coupon raised doubts among the police about the authenticity, on this basis Kirill Igitkhanyan was detained and taken to the Dorogomilovskiy OVD.
Nikolay Kondrat was disturbed by the detention of the driver with a “fake” certificate. To prevent the driver from telling his parents about this, the guy decided to get rid of him., according to a source of Izvestia in law enforcement agencies. He instructed the same Nikita Matsnev to carry out his plans, promising a “generous” fee – 80 thousand rubles.
Photo: Global Look Press / Nikolay Gyngazov
According to the investigation, Nikolai Kondrat passed a hunting knife to Nikita Matsnev through a taxi driver and wrote a message to Kirill, making an appointment in a remote place – in a ravine in the Lukhovitsky district of the Moscow region – supposedly to discuss what had happened. Nikita Matsnev attracted his friend Gennady Voskresensky to the case. Together, they met the unsuspecting driver at the designated location the day after the arrest incident, October 3. During the meeting, a fight broke out, the man received several knife wounds, from which he died.
On December 21, 2020, Nikolai Kondrat was arrested on suspicion of organizing the murder of Kirill Igitkhanyan. The investigators managed to reach the alleged executor and the customer thanks to the billing of telephone conversations of the murdered, as well as a program that allows you to track the movement of a person on a mobile phone. Billing brought investigators to Nikita Matsnev, who was arrested along with the second perpetrator Gennady Voskresensky. Under the threat of life imprisonment, the Izvestia source claims, Matsnev decided to alleviate his fate by frank confession and testimony against the ordering party of the murder. He also spoke about the unfinished murders of Tatyana Petrova and Mikhail Ivanov, which he did not manage to complete due to the arrest.
In addition to the testimony of Nikita Matsnev, who made a deal with the investigation, the involvement of Nikolai Kondrat in the crimes is also confirmed by other collected evidence, Criminal Investigators told Izvestia. These are the same trackers, call billing, taxi driver readings, CCTV recordings, SMS correspondence, a tracking program seized from a personal computer, and more.
Fathers and Sons
Mikhail Ivanov told Izvestia that he knows nothing about the criminal case against Nikolai Kondrat. He is not familiar with a person with that name, the first time he heard about him from the media, which show an increased interest in him, he joked. Another alleged victim, Tatyana Petrova, said that she could not disclose the details of the criminal case until the end of the investigation.
– How do I feel? And how can a person feel, whom they wanted to kill? It’s all a shock to me, ”she said.
During a search carried out after the arrest in the apartment of the son of Elena and Ivan Kondrat, the security forces found $ 200 thousand in cash, another 100 thousand were found in his car, the editorial source claims. According to him, Nikolai Kondrat could not explain the origin of this money.
A criminal case on the attempted murder of two people was initiated on April 26 under Part 1 of Art. 30 and part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – “Intentional murder by a group of persons by prior conspiracy.” Nikolai Kondrat refused to testify in the case. But later he announced a slander allegedly committed against him.
Attempts to put pressure on the investigation have already been repeatedly made, the Izvestia source noted. Nikolai’s high-ranking parents tried to transfer him from the pre-trial detention center to house arrest. They also repeatedly applied to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation with a request to conduct supervisory checks. The case was withdrawn from the investigators, but the Prosecutor General’s Office did not find a single reason to terminate it.
Photo: Izvestia / Alexander Kazakov
The following is known about the suspect’s parents. Mother, Elena Kondrat – judge of the Moscow Arbitration, Associate Professor of the Department of Administrative and Financial Law of MGIMO, author of more than 40 scientific papers in the field of financial law, financial control and financial security of the state. In the arbitration court in its proceedings are multimillion-dollar bankruptcy cases of individuals and legal entities, as well as civil disputes. Nikolai’s father Ivan Kondrat is the ex-Deputy of the former Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika, the ex-Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminal Law at MGIMO. His research interests include, in particular, Russian and international experience in combating corruption, according to the official website of the university. And one of the latest publications from 2018 is devoted to the problems of victims in criminal proceedings.
The illusion of permissiveness
It will not be possible to influence the course of the case using the connections of the times of Yuri Chaika, I am sure the lawyer, candidate of legal sciences, retired police colonel Yevgeny Chernousov.
– With the arrival of a new prosecutor, the situation has changed. I know firsthand. I am one of the investigators in the high-profile case of 1959 in the Dyatlov Pass, as a lawyer I defend three relatives. With Igor Krasnov’s entry into a new position, we have also undergone changes for the better in this resonant case. There are other examples as well. I see that the new prosecutor has really taken up his duties, this is evident from his actions, he will never take any bribes from anyone, he has a different attitude and other priorities. I think that this was reflected in the case of Nikolai Kondrat. That the prosecutor’s office will follow someone’s lead, violating the law, this cannot be now, the lawyer believes.
Once upon a time, some decisions of the prosecutor’s office could really be influenced using personal connections, said Vladimir Volokh, professor at the State University of Management, member of the public council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Photo: Izvestia / Konstantin Kokoshkin
– I believe that this was the reason for making a thorough selection of personnel in the Prosecutor General’s Office and in local authorities. Their current composition meets the requirements of the time. There is certainly progress. People may want to use connections, but a solid legal framework must exist for the prosecutor to make any submission. “On a call” such issues are not being resolved now. Currently, communications are minimized and basically the principle of compliance with the law is in place, the expert believes.
Children from elite families often develop a permissive syndrome, this is a common problem, says psychiatrist Mark Sandomirsky. A child who has never been denied anything may develop a strong belief that he is better than others and has the moral right to humiliate, use and suppress these others. And even commit crimes against them, the expert says.
– Elements of the family scenario can also take part in this, if the teenager observed such behavior in the family. He is used to the fact that such an attitude towards people is the norm. And, growing up, he realizes this attitude in his own actions, – explained Mark Sandomirsky.
The cult of success existing in society at any cost can also influence, the expert believes. Many young people lose their sense of reality, and the high status of their parents helps them in this, creating the illusion of impunity.