Novosibirsk scientist Dmitry Kolker, who was taken directly from the hospital, despite the last stage of cancer, and placed in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center on suspicion of "treason", previously refused to testify against the scientific director of the Institute of Laser Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Bagaev and the director of this institute Alexey Taychenachev. Kolker's son Maxim told The Insider.
“He was invited, they wanted him to testify against the chief researcher Bagaev and the director of the Institute of Laser Physics. He said that he would not tell lies and what he did not know about. Some kind of incitement took place, ”explained Maxim Kolker.
Director of the Institute of Laser Physics Taichenachev became a defendant in a criminal case on abuse of power (part 1 of article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in October 2021. In February 2022, the 80-year-old academician Bagaev was detained in the case of a particularly large-scale fraud.
According to Kolker, his father's lawyer has already flown to Moscow, but so far they do not have any information.
“Nothing is known yet. The last contact was with his father at 18:15 during the flight to Moscow. He said he was sorry. Perhaps he understood his condition. We don't even know if he's still alive or not. The investigator said that there were good conditions and a refrigerator in the cell. What refrigerator? A person cannot eat, he is fed through a vein. He has constant vomiting. People don't go with that."
Kolker said that his father had stage IV cancer and metastases. He went to a private clinic for chemotherapy, but on June 29 his condition worsened and he was urgently hospitalized. “In normal condition, he weighed 100 kg, now – 67 kg. Five months ago, the doctor said that if nothing is done, then he will have three months to live, if something is done, then he can be extended, but how much is unknown, because there was already the fourth degree, ”he said.
Maxim Kolker is sure that when his father was taken from the hospital, no medicine was taken for him. “They had no idea who they were taking and in what condition,” he added.
Maxim Kolker notes that in the past few years, such attention by the FSB to scientists in Novosibirsk has been a common practice. “But when a person is taken from the hospital, put on a plane and packed into a pre-trial detention center in Moscow on the same day, this is not exactly a common thing,” he says.
Dmitry Kolker, 54, is a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, head of the laboratory of quantum optical technologies at the Institute of Laser Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Novosibirsk State University, and a professor at the Department of Laser Systems at Novosibirsk State Technical University (NGTU NETI). On June 30, a court in Novosibirsk arrested him on suspicion of treason, after which he was taken by plane to Moscow.
Dmitry Kolker traveled to China several times with lectures. According to his son, he was accompanied on trips by an FSB officer who made sure that the scientist did not communicate with students and colleagues in English, but only in Russian through an interpreter.
The scientist's son insists that the documents related to his father's scientific research did not contain state secrets. All of them underwent special examination.
A photograph of the paper with the titles of the presentations for which he is accused was published by Dmitry Kolker's daughter Alina Mironova on her VKontakte page.
She also published photos taken on the eve of hospitalization, where Kolker is cared for by his mother.
“The fourth stage of pancreatic cancer is a sentence. But to meet this sentence not at home, but within the walls of a pre-trial detention center without proper medical care is the worst thing that can happen to a person, ”she wrote .
This is not the first time that Russian scientists have been prosecuted under the article on treason. In 2018, a case was opened against TsNIIMash employee Viktor Kudryavtsev. The scientist spent more than a year in Lefortovo, after which he was placed under house arrest. The case never made it to court; in 2021, he died at the age of 77. Kudryavtsev's student Roman Kovalev was convicted of treason in 2020. He was released in 2022 for health reasons and died in April.