MOSCOW, April 2 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court extended until June 3 the detention of ousted Yaroslavl mayor Yevgeny Urlashov who stands accused of bribery, RAPSI reported on Thursday from the courtroom.
Urlashov’s alleged accomplices, Dmitry Donskov and Alexei Lopatin, were also left in detention.
Investigators believe that Urlashov, who was elected to the mayoral post in April 2012, with his accomplices extorted a bribe of 45 million rubles (about $771,200) from businessmen.
The police detained Urlashov on July 3, 2013.
He pleaded not guilty and said that his prosecution was politically motivated.
Urlashov, a member of the ruling United Russia party in 2008-2011, became a candidate for the opposition during mayoral elections in 2012. He achieved a landslide victory over a United Russia candidate Yakov Yakushev. A member of billionaire-turned-politician Mikhail Prokhorov’s Civic Platform party, he planned to take part in the elections to the Yaroslavl regional parliament in September 2013.
On July 18, 2013, Urlashov was removed from his mayoral post.
In December 2014, a court found another accomplice of Urlashov, Maxim Pokalainen, guilty on bribery charges and sentenced him to five years in prison.
