Between the multiple companies made during his career for Aleksandr Bastrykinin front of the Russian Investigative Committeea body equivalent to the Attorney General’s Office in Spain, highlights one of them, which occurred in 2012. It invited Sergei Sokolova journalist from Novaya Gazeta who just posted a critical article regarding a case managed by the institution he directs, to travel with him from Moscow to Nalchik, a small town in the north caucasus. During the flight, he demanded the reporter will retract of what was written, and once the plane arrived to his destinyintroduced the passenger in a car and took him to a forest where he ordered to the bodyguards to leave them alone. During the conversation, he made fun of Anna Politkóvskaya, the famous journalist who was assassinated six years before, and threatened the life of his interlocutor. Subsequently, the jurist himself admitted the facts and apologized therefore, assuring that he was the victim of a “emotional outburst”.
According to the research Putin’s ListBastrykin has turned the Investigative Committee into “one of the tools to preserve the Putin regime, opening criminal cases against opposition leaders and investigations in court cases clearly political“. He is a man of the maximum confidence of the president Vladimir Putinas evidenced by their long-standing relationship, dating back to the college yearswhen both were studying Law at the Leningrad State University. His closeness to the leader of the Kremlin has made him one of the characters in his environment more punished by international sanctions: entry into the US is prohibited and its assets are immobilized.
In Russia, by law, senior russian officials and the personalities with access to state secrets have limited ability to buy and own property in NATO member countries. This has not prevented Bastrykin acquired, secretlyreal estate in the Czech Republic and was even in possession of a residence permitan extreme that came to light in a parliamentary investigation in 2006 and that denounced again anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalni six years later.