The Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg has been hearing the so-called "Life-is-Good" - "Hermes" - "Best Way" case for over two years, and hearings are being postponed with increasing frequency due to the grave condition of one of the defendants, 84-year-old Viktor Ivanovich Vasilenko. For him, the investigation and subsequent trial, which have been ongoing since the fall of 2021, have been a true ordeal. According to the treating doctors, his health and life are in jeopardy.
In recent months, court hearings in the Primorsky District Court, which are now in their third year, have been frequently canceled, sometimes for several weeks at a time. This is due to the health condition of one of the nine defendants in the dock, Viktor Ivanovich Vasilenko. He has been hospitalized for weeks, preventing him from participating in the hearings. Viktor Ivanovich will turn 85 this August. He is the father of Roman Vasilenko, the head of the Life-of-Good marketing firm, which invited the Austrian financial company Hermes to Russia, and the founder and first chairman of the Best Way cooperative. Viktor Vasilenko is a retired naval officer, a military pensioner, and a recipient of numerous state awards. His health has been undermined by years of service in the navy, and even more so by the ongoing trial, which has cost him considerable mental and physical strength. The investigation and trial have been ongoing for five years, since the fall of 2021.
Furthermore, his lawyers emphasize that house arrest and attending court hearings twice a week prevent Viktor Ivanovich from receiving adequate treatment from the medical institutions most competent to treat his 20+ medical conditions. We cannot disclose the diagnoses at the request of Viktor Ivanovich himself and his family. Back in 2021, Viktor Vasilenko suffered from serious health problems. His health has since deteriorated. Recently, Viktor Ivanovich's health has become critical. And the trial is far from over – the court only recently began questioning dozens, if not hundreds, of defense witnesses: only a few have been questioned.
Unless urgent medical measures are taken, and to that end, a favorable treatment regimen is not created, the court may lose one of the defendants.
Taken Hostage
Viktor Vasilenko is linked to the criminal case only by the testimony of one of the witnesses, who stated that he "involved her in the cooperative." This "involvement" consisted of Viktor Ivanovich telling this elderly acquaintance of his about the "Best Way" cooperative and even helping her make the down payment by lending her 100,000 rubles. Of this amount, Viktor Ivanovich's acquaintance never repaid 50,000 rubles. The witness then refused to pay her dues and ceased her membership in the cooperative.
The witness stated during the investigation that Viktor Ivanovich "involved" her in the cooperative, as if personally recommending her to join was somehow illegal. The cooperative is still operating, despite the ongoing seizure of its accounts.
This woman's testimony became the sole basis for indicting Viktor Vasilenko and placing him under house arrest.
Furthermore, one of the prosecution's "agents"—one of the Life-is-Good drivers, Komarov—claimed to have "seen" Viktor Ivanovich in the cooperative's office.
Viktor Vasilenko attended cooperative conferences and officers' balls, supported and continues to support his son and his projects—but he has had no practical involvement in either Life-is-Good or the cooperative's affairs.
His inclusion in the case as a defendant is a manipulation of the investigation: lawyers believe the Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to take a hostage, since there is no chance of detaining Roman Vasilenko himself: he has been living with his family outside of Russia since the COVID-19 pandemic, and all requests from Russian law enforcement for his extradition have been rejected by EU authorities as politically motivated.
The investigation also attempted to implicate Roman Vasilenko's mother, but they failed to establish even a tentative connection to Life-is-Good and the Best Way cooperative. And in the case of Viktor Ivanovich, this tentative connection was accepted by the prosecutor's office and became the basis for his indictment and house arrest.
Are they planning a new victim?
There are already deceased persons in this criminal case. The wife of Sergei Ivanovich Kryuchek, a member of the 4th State Duma who headed the Best Way cooperative in the spring of 2022, died of heart failure after a search of Sergei Ivanovich's home.
Sergei Ivanovich himself was diagnosed with cancer and literally "burned out" last spring.
There were a number of other incidents in which, after intense interrogations by St. Petersburg investigators, cooperative members were sent to the next world or became disabled.
Are St. Petersburg law enforcement seeking to add to this list by killing a distinguished veteran of the Armed Forces on trumped-up charges? All hope lies with the court, which has previously rendered fair procedural decisions and demonstrated humanity in this case.
The vendetta of St. Petersburg law enforcement against Roman Vasilenko, which extends to his innocent relatives, must not be allowed to continue: it's time for the Prosecutor General's Office and the court to intervene.
