The Harju County Court reached a decision in the Port of Tallinn trial where Ain Kaljurand was charged with accepting a bribe as an official and money laundering, Martin Paide with accepting a bribe as an official, Eno Saar with giving a bribe to an official, Tõnis Pohla and Üllar Raad with giving a bribe to an official, Toivo Promm with aiding and abetting bribery and money laundering and Jan Paszkowski with giving a bribe to an official.

As the court found that Kaljurand and the late Allan Kiil were not acting in the capacity of officials, the acts in question were reclassified as bribery in the private sector, which makes them crimes in the second degree and means their limitation period has passed. All of the accused were acquitted and the state ordered to pay compensation. For example, former Port of Tallinn board member Ain Kaljurand is looking at compensation in the volume of €181,000. Former head of the port company's service department Martin Paide will be paid €24,000.

The court ordered the state to pay criminal proceedings costs of €1.26 million and damages of €98,332.

Court: Kaljurand did accept a bribe

At the same time, the court found that the guilt of the accused has been proven in reduced capacity. Ain Kaljurand's actions were reclassified as accepting bribes in the private sector, those of Eno Saar, Üllar Raad and Tõnis Pohla as giving bribes in the private sector. In the case of Toivo Promm, the court found he has facilitated bribes, instead of aiding and abetting bribery.

Because giving and accepting bribes in the private sector are offenses in the second degree, the statute of limitation for these offenses has passed and the accused cannot be found guilty on this basis. Martin Paide was acquitted as his guilt was not sufficiently proven, while Kaljurand, Promm, Saar, Pohla and Raad were acquitted due to the limitation period passing.

The court found that Ain Kaljurand and Allan Kiil as Port of Tallinn board members and Allan Kiil as a member of the supervisory board of [ferry operator] TS Laevad OÜ cannot be considered officials who were performing public tasks. They were acting in the capacity of board members of a legal entity in private law and were in charge of normal economic activity.

The court also reduced the volume of charges. The court found two charges regarding public procurements and the company Keskkonnahooldus OÜ to have no basis. Also that Tõnis Pohla and Üllar Raad have not given cash bribes to Allan Kiil and Ain Kaljurand, and that Tõnis Pohla has not given Kaljurand a chainsaw and a loan of €100,000 as bribes. The charges were also dialed back in the part treating with contractual violations.

The giving and receiving of bribes took place through fictitious transactions between Keskkonnahoolduse OÜ, HTG Invest AS, Esteve Terminal AS and Bone Invest OÜ. Allan Kiil received bribes as the true beneficiary of Bone Invest OÜ. Ain Kaljurand received bribes through fictitious transactions between Bone Invest OÜ and AKA Auto OÜ and Locatore Group OÜ. Kaljurand was the true beneficiary of AKA Auto OÜ and Locatore Group OÜ.

Court: Ferries episode constituted fraud rather than bribery

In the case of the procurement of Estonia's island ferries from shipyards in Turkey and Poland, the court found that bribes have not been given, accepted or facilitated, and that rather fraud or embezzlement were committed.

The court determined that Allan Kiil, acting as a representative of TS Laevad OÜ, negotiated with shipyards for the construction of passenger ferries and agreed on the following scheme with Toivo Promm, Polish shipyard representative Jan Paszkowski and a representative of a Turkish shipyard: Promm would enter into false brokerage agreements with the shipyards, for which he did not actually provide services. The broker fee was set at 2 percent of the construction cost of the ships, and this 2 percent was added to the price of the ships. Kiil signed the shipbuilding contracts with Poland and Turkey on behalf of TS Laevad, which included the false 2 percent broker fee. After TS Laevad made installment payments to the shipyards, Promm submitted an invoice for the 2 percent fee, which was then transferred to an account associated with R.I.C.H Group Trading Ltd. Promm subsequently transferred the money in such a way that part of it ended up with Bone Invest OÜ, which was ultimately beneficial to Kiil.

The court found factual discrepancies in the charges, preventing the reclassification of the crimes. In this episode, Toivo Promm and Jan Paszkowski were acquitted of bribery charges due to the absence of criminal elements.

Regarding the money laundering episodes, the court found that the descriptions of the charges were the same as those for giving and receiving bribes and the prosecution's bribery charges involving the Polish and Turkish shipyards (possibly fraud/embezzlement as determined by the court), thus merging the money laundering allegations into these. In all episodes, the purpose of the transfers was to channel money to Allan Kiil and/or Ain Kaljurand and ultimately for their personal use, not to integrate the money into the legal economy, which is the aim of money laundering. Consequently, the court acquitted Ain Kaljurand and Toivo Promm of money laundering charges.

As a result of the termination of criminal proceedings and acquittals, the court dismissed the civil claims of AS Port of Tallinn and TS Laevad OÜ. The court did not find any conflicts or gaps with the Constitution. The victims have the right to file a civil lawsuit.

The decision of the county court can be appealed to the Tallinn Circuit Court within 30 days.

Keres: It was clear the charges would be reclassified

Ain Kaljurand's defense attorney Paul Keres stated that the partial dismissal of the proceedings and the partial acquittal of Kaljurand are positive developments. However, he believes that some of the court's reasoning was incorrect and did not align with the presented evidence. As a result, they are considering partially appealing the decision.

Regarding the prolonged duration of the trial, Keres noted that it could have been concluded earlier if the prosecution had agreed to reclassify Kaljurand's charges as a second degree crime, as the court ultimately decided.

"It became clear years ago that the reclassification, as the court did, was inevitable. The prosecution had the opportunity to drop the charges, thereby reducing the suffering of those involved in the proceedings, but they chose not to do so. Instead, they continued to drag the defendants through the process, which incurred financial costs and caused mental stress. I am absolutely dissatisfied with this – the matter could have been resolved long ago," he said.

Keres emphasized that the district court's decision has significant implications for the future. "The court did not agree with the prosecution's very convenient tactic of classifying anyone working in a state-owned enterprise as a public official. This has now been overturned by the court. Additionally, it has been established that one cannot simultaneously commit fraud or bribery and money laundering with the same act. I hope this will influence court and prosecution practices in the future if this ruling stands," he added.

Prosecution mulling whether and how much to appeal

State Prosecutor Kadri Väling said that even though the court found the nature of the offenses to have been different from the prosecution's charges, the court still concluded that evidence points to the guilt of the accused.

"The court had a different legal assessment of these offenses and found that they did not constitute giving and receiving bribes in the performance of public tasks, but rather bribery in the private sector and offenses against property. The county court's position was that the first degree offenses outlined in the charges were really second degree offenses for which the limitation period has passed," she explained.

"We need to carefully analyze the court's decision as it arrived at a different legal conclusion in several aspects. We will decide after a thorough analysis whether and to what extent to appeal the ruling in the circuit court," Väling added.

Background:

The Port of Tallinn criminal case, which started in 2015, landed in court in 2019, with a few hundred court sessions held since then. The final session was planned for March 28 this year.

At the time the first session was scheduled for January 2019, the court aimed to hold 114 sessions to last until June 2020.

The trial went back to square one last April when a new bench had to be appointed as the court satisfied lay judge Peeter Kaasik's application to resign for health reasons. After that, additional sessions were scheduled to last into January 2025.

Last summer, Public Prosecutor Denis Tšasovskih suddenly resigned, with Kadri Väling appointed in his stead. But Väling said in October that she does not have enough time to get up to speed on proceedings and asked to be recused. Instead, the court gave Väling an extra three months to familiarize herself with the case materials.

Tšasovskih was the second prosecutor to quit the trial.

The trial also dragged on as numerous sessions had to be canceled due to defense counsels and the accused taking ill, but also the fact that the accused's lawyers were busy with other cases, which caused the court to appoint substitute defenders.

Examinations by the court ended last November and summations followed from this January.

The Internal Security Service (ISS) arrested Allan Kiil and Ain Kaljurand at the end of summer 2015 on suspicions of accepting bribes on a large scale as Port of Tallinn board members over a period of ten years. According to the charges, Martin Paide agreed to accept bribes of over €40,000, Kaljurand around €400,000 and Kiil over €3.5 million.

The charges also held that the lion's share of the bribes was the close to €3 million Kiil was promised by representatives of Turkish and Polish shipyards for the contract to build Estonia's new island ferries.

The prosecution claimed that the bribes reached Paide and Kaljurand in full, while Kiil received close to €2 million of the bribe he was promised before he was detained on suspicions of criminal offenses. Kiil and Kaljurand were released from custody early in 2016.

The case of Allan Kiil was terminated in October 2020 after he took seriously ill and wasn't able to attend court sessions. Kiil died in June of last year.

The court made the first ruling in May of 2019 when it found Valdo Õunap guilty of aiding and abetting bribery and money laundering and handed him a conditional prison sentence of two years and six months.

In December of 2022, the court terminated the criminal case of Sven Honga due to the limitation period passing. Honga was charged with giving bribes to Port of Tallinn employees. Because the charges claimed Honga gave bribes in 2007-2012, the limitation period for these offenses was November 2022. But Honga and his company Keskkonnahoolduse OÜ had to continue participating in the trial as civil defendants as the Port of Tallinn has filed a compensation claim against them.

The article was updated to add comments from Ain Kaljurand's defense attorney Paul Keres.

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