"Stringer": a knight of the cloak-and-non-cash

Recently the staff of the economic security Service of the FSB finished reviewing the financial documents of the Foundation for the Support of Islamic culture, established with an active participation of Directorate for Domestic Policy of the Presidential Administration of RF.

The Fund’s audit results turned out to be disappointing: it revealed numerous violations related to the misappropriation of funds. The amounts of inappropriately spent funds are dazzling.

Non-Profit Charitable Foundation for the Support of Islamic Culture, Science and Education (full name of the fund) was registered in January 2007 as indicated on the official website of the Fund, in order to support the traditional Muslim religious organizations and their ongoing projects aimed at promoting general tolerance, religious tolerance, eliminating Islam phobia and division of a society by ethnic and religious grounds.

However, in reality it was not so easy. As stated in the founding documents, the board of the Fund is headed by the rector of the Moscow Islamic University - Marat Murtazin, Board of Trustees – by President of the Chamber of Commerce - Evgeny Primakov. But, according to knowledgeable people, they are nothing more than “ceremonial bystanders”. In fact, the Foundation is run by the adviser of Directorate for Domestic Policy of the Presidential Administration of RF - Alexey Grishin, who is modestly staffed as an ordinary member of the board.

An expert in religious law, Doctor of Law, member of the Public Chamber on education in Moscow, Igor Ponkin was the first who paid his attention to a suspicious situation around the "Islamic" Fund. In particular, he wrote the following lines in an analytical note, prepared as early as 2008: According to an employee of the Presidential Administration Alexander Grishin, in 2007 the Fund was provided with 400 million rubles to support Islamic education. in 2008-2009 Islamic Development Bank was supposed to credit 1.5 million dollars to the Fund for humanitarian projects.

According to the above-mentioned analytical note, the funds which had been passing through the Foundation were huge. Even in a crisis of 2009 there were "over 1100 grants totaling 198 million rubles distributed between religious and other organizations" (in 2008 - 240 million). And this is only according to official figures. As for the audit results, the Fund had held through at least two-folded (more than 1 billion rubles.). It turns out more than half of all the money "disappeared" in an unknown direction.

The audit found that, contrary to the charter, in addition to extra-budgetary sources (donations of Russian and foreign businessmen and Islamic organizations), the Fund was regularly supplemented by funds from the state budget.

Another $ 1.5 million disappeared which the Fund Islamic Development Bank (IDB) had allocated to publicize a multivolume encyclopedia of Islamic in Russian. None of the planned 16 volumes (nearly $ 100 thousand for each - what a scope!) was ever published.

The grants had been distributed between the Russian Islamic structures in a very "peculiar" way as well. The regions repeatedly complained they had to send 20-30% of the amount received back to Moscow (as a "payoff"). And that was despite the fact that by law the Fund had the right to leave 20% statutory funds for the implementation of its statutory activities. What was more needed?

Another story was the conduction of different competitions, conferences, festivals and seminars (Women of the Islamic Conference, the Congress of young specialists in Turkic languages, the conference "Islam will defeat terrorism," etc.). There was a lot one could afford. According to some estimates, the cost of such activities was overstated 2 or even 3 times. At the same time they "mastered" million- funds coming from abroad - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, the Organization of Islamic Conference.

Formally, the founders of the Fund are Muslim organizations - the Council of muftis of Russia, the International Islamic Mission, the Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims, the Muslim Coordinating Center of the North Caucasus and the Russian public organization “Al-Hak"(" Justice "). However, the surrounding of Mr. Grishin does not let the representatives of these structures set foot on its threshold.

There is no wonder. Over the past year "the Islamist in civvies" has fully staffed the Fund (10 persons) by his proteges who came from different parts of the country. And the current executive director of the Fund Dmitry Bondarenko (who is in charge of all financial document flow) was issued to the capital from ... Latin America.