ST. PETERSBURG, February 12 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – A judgement terminating criminal proceedings against an ex-CEO of a company contracted for construction of a detention facility in St. Petersburg Viktor Kudrin has been upheld by a higher court, the United press service of St. Petersburg courts informs RAPSI.

The St. Petersburg City Court decision based on the fact of the expiration of the statute of limitation for criminal proceedings, earlier established by a lower court.

According to case materials, in 2007 through 2015 a contract for construction of a detention facility was in force between the city penitentiary authority and the contractor; over this period the latter received about 12.2 billion rubles ($163 million at the current exchange rate) as contractual payments.

The prosecution insisted that the contractor failed to complete certain works stipulated by the contract, but falsified respective reports. The amounts paid for these works were diverted for other purposes; therefore, the penitentiary authority and the state it represented suffered damages.

Originally, Kudrin had been charged with bribery and especially large embezzlement, later, corruption charges were dropped and embezzlement charges were replaced with abuse of office.

The penitentiary authority also lost its case against the contractor in the Commercial Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, seeking to recover from the contractor 1.2 billion rubles ($16.3 million) because of the expiration of the statute of limitation; currently this claim is examined by a higher court on appeal, two more claims amounting to 7.6 million rubles ($103,000) and 5 ($68,000) million rubles are examined by first instance courts.