MOSCOW, February 11 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) – Moscow’s Presnensky District Court  questioned a criminal case against Yekaterina Smetanova, former head of a Defense Ministry-affiliated company, and sent it back to prosecutors for overhaul, RAPSI learnt in the court on Thursday.

“The criminal case against Smetanova has been returned to prosecutors under article 237 of Russian Criminal Code to eliminate defects”, representative of the court said.

Defects in question were not named because the case was herd behind closed doors.

Smetanova has pleaded guilty to the crimes of which she has been accused, and provided detailed and consistent testimony exposing the other individuals involved in the crime. She has been released under restriction notice. Case against her was singled out and considered separately.

The corruption scandal broke out at the Defense Ministry in 2012 and led to led to the resignation of the then defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Yevgeniya Vasilyeva.

Serdyukov was charged with negligence. Investigators claimed that his actions or inactions resulted in damages to the state estimated at 56 million rubles (about $745,000) by ordering army personnel to build a private road to a Caspian Sea resort owned by his brother-in-law.

However, the Russian media reported in late December 2013 that the criminal probe into Serdyukov’s actions was closed. Serdyukov's lawyer Genrikh Padva said later that his client was pardoned under an amnesty program.

On May 8, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow sentenced Yevgeniya Vasilyeva, an aide to Serdyukov, to five years in prison for her involvement in corruption cases at the Defense Ministry.

In late August, a court in the Vladimir Region released Vasilyeva on parole.