MOSCOW, May 22 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) – The Cheremushkinsky District Court has refused to return a criminal case against Leonid Melamed, former chief of the Russian nanotechnology corporation Rusnano, to prosecutors, RAPSI learnt in the court on Monday.

Melamed and organization’s former financial director Svyatoslav Ponurov are charged with embezzling 220 million rubles (about $3.8 million at the current exchange rate). They could face ten years in prison if convicted.

During the preliminary hearing, the court ruled to put both defendants under house arrest until August 22. The first hearing is set for May 30.

On May 11, lawyer Ruslan Kozhura told RAPSI that Melamed had been released from house arrest. Ponurov was released from detention. Moreover, prosecutors refused to approve indictment in the case, the attorney added. The Prosecutor General’s Office announced later that “gross violations” of criminal procedure legislation’s provisions preventing the approval of indictment had been revealed.

Later in the evening of the same day, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika a ruling of his deputy Viktor Grin to send the case back to the Investigative Committee for additional investigation and forwarded it to court.

The Investigative Committee claims that between 2007 and 2009, Melamed along with ex- corporation managers Andrey Malyshev and Svyatoslav Ponurov illegally transferred over 220 million rubles ($2.9 million) from Rusnano to Alemar Co. controlled by Melamed. The defendants pled not guilty.

According to the information available, the case was opened after the check of the corporation’s finance indicators by the Audit Chamber. The defendants have been charged with large-scale embezzlement of public funds.