MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI) - If found guilty, Rosbank CEO Vladimir Golubkov, who has been detained along with Senior Vice President Tamara Polyanitsyna, could be sentenced to seven years in prison for corrupt business practices, attorney Dmitry Kharitonov told RAPSI on Thursday.
Kharitonov said the Investigative Committee's Moscow department has not indicated what measures of restraint they intend to take against his client.
"We have requested that the case be turned over to other investigators because we believe that the current group cannot be unbiased," Kharitonov said.
According to investigative officers, Golubkov was detained while accepting a 5-million-ruble ($160,000) bribe, which was part of the $1.5 million he demanded from a commercial organization for extending a loan agreement and signing an additional agreement, with a lower interest rate and monthly payments.
Golubkov was born in 1966 and has been working for the bank since 1999. He served as executive vice president from 2001 to 2003 and was appointed Rosbank CEO in September 2008.
Rosbank is a private universal bank within the Societe Generale banking group. It provides banking services to private and corporate clients and has a network of over 600 offices in 340 cities and towns across Russia. It is a top 10 Russian bank by assets.