MOSCOW, September 10 (RAPSI, Kirill Ryabchikov) – The Moscow City Court on Monday issued an arrest warrant for Moscow’s judge emeritus Alexey Zorin in absentia in a corruption case, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

The defendant stands charged with extortion and acceptance of a bribe.

According to case papers, in 2015, Zorin extorted a 20,000-ruble (about $300) bribe from a case victim during a court hearing.

Currently, he is hiding out from law enforcement authorities abroad. Investigators claim that the former judge crossed the border between Belarus and Ukraine in December 2017. He was put on the international wanted list in April 2018.

Moscow’s qualification board of judges terminated the powers of Zorin in 2015 upon his application. In 2016, the board granted a recommendation of the Investigative Committee’s Chairman Alexander Bastrykin and gave its consent to opening a bribery case against the former judge.