Monaco. It was the last judicial part of a case with multiple twists and turns: the Monaco Court of Appeal ordered on February 27, the cancellation of all the backgrounds of the criminal procedure launched in September 2017 against Dmitri Rybolovlev, his lawyer Tetiana Bersheda as well as several senior police officials and the justice of the Principality of Monaco. This cancellation leads to the cancellation of the criminal procedure.
The Russian businessman, a Monegasque resident and owner of the Principal football club, has long been in conflict with the merchant Yves Bouvier, to whom he reproached for having sold him paintings by pocketing the margins which he estimated disproportionate. This civil component of the case concluded with a transaction made public in December 2023.
But, as the lawyer Yves-Bernard Debie recalls in Lejournaldesarts.fr From February 3, this civil component is accompanied by a double criminal procedure. The Monegasque justice had first continued the merchant and then canceled (judgment of 12 Dec. 2019) all the charges weighing on him by describing in 13 pages the special relations between the lawyer of Rybolovlev and some of the highest authorities of the police and the Monegasque justice. “Ultimately, Is it written, it appears that the civil party (Rybolovlev and his lawyer) was able to benefit in an occult manner throughout the investigation of private favors both from the investigators and the director of public security and the Attorney General himself who entrusted them with the investigation, and that this agreement contrary to the principles of independence, loyalty, neutrality and secrecy of the investigation. »»
In return, the Monegasque justice continued Rybolovlev, his lawyer and the Monegasque authorities involved, based on the operation of the messages contained in the lawyer’s phone. But, seized by Monegasque justice, the European Court of Human Rights judged that the excavation and the exploitation of the telephone were contrary to article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, resulting in the cancellation of the Monegasque procedure. In a press release, the (new) prosecutor general of Monaco took note of the decision of the Court of Appeal and indicated that he will not form an appeal in revision. As the aforementioned 2019 judgment notes, Rybolovlev is “An ultra VIP” in Monaco.
