MOSCOW, April 26 (RAPSI) – Ex-chief of the Investigative Committee’s Internal Security Directorate Mikhail Maksimenko has appealed his 13-year prison sentence for corruption, the defendant’s lawyer Andrey Grivtsov has told RAPSI.

On April 20, Maksimenko was found guilty of taking two bribes. The defendant was also fined 165 million rubles ($2.8 million).

According to prosecutors, in 2016, Maksimenko and his accomplice received $500,000 bribe for help with one of criminal cases. He is also charged with taking $50,000 bribe in 2015 for organizing unlawful criminal prosecution of law enforcement officers in the interests of a bribe-giver.

The defendant has been arrested along with other high-ranking investigators, his deputy Alexander Lamonov and the First Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee’s Moscow Directorate, General Denis Nikandrov.

The three officers were charged with taking €500,000 from alleged gang leader Zakhariy Kalashov, who was sentenced to 9 years and 10 months in a high security penal colony on March 29.