Moscow Court Acquits Russian Mafia Boss Ivankov

Moscow City Court has acquitted Vyacheslav Ivankov, a notorious Russian mafia boss charged with the murder of two Turkish citizens.

On Monday, the court of jury found Ivankov not guilty of the murder. Prosecutors have said they will appeal the verdict in Russia’s Supreme Court. The acting Moscow prosecutor, Vladimir Bakun, said on Tuesday the jurors were biased because seven of them either had previous convictions, or had relatives who were taken to court.

According to the investigators, Ivankov and another notorious criminal known by the nickname of Sliva (Plum) killed the Turkish citizens in a Moscow restaurant in 1992. One of them died at the scene and the other later at a hospital.

In 2000, Moscow prosecutors charged Ivankov with the murders in his absence; he was in the United States at the time. On July 15, 2004, soon after his deportation from the United States, he was charged with the murders again.

Ivankov also known as Yaponchik (Little Japanese) had already become notorious for creating the Solntsevskaya criminal organization in Russia in 1980. In 1982 he was imprisoned on robbery charges. After arriving in the United States he ran the Russian mafia throughout the country and reportedly became the highest-ranking Russian criminal in the United States.

He was arrested in New York in 1995 on charges of organizing a sham marriage and supervising the extortion of several million dollars from an investment firm. The courts indicted him after a two-year investigation and sentenced him to nine years and seven months in prison. He was going to be released early for good behavior, but his sentence was extended after a fight with another inmate thought to be a deliberate provocation.

Ivankov was extradited to Russia on July 11, 2004.