ST. PETERSBURG, April 3 (RAPSI, Kirill Chulkov) – Both prosecutors and defense filed an appeal against three-year jail sentence handed down to banker Alexander Gitelson, who had been convicted of embezzling over 2 billion rubles (about $33 million) in public funds, Gitelson's lawyer Valentin Varkentin told RAPSI on Friday.

Gitelson and former CEO of Inkasbank Tatyana Lebedeva were charged with embezzling the funds that authorities of St. Petersburg deposited with the bank from May 2006 to May 2007.

Gitelson was convicted and sentenced on March 23. A court in St. Petersburg slapped a 500,000 rubles (about $9,000) fine on the banker.

Prosecutors appealed against the sentence he received, arguing it was too soft. They also claim that the court didn’t take into account that  Gitelson had been convicted and sentenced in another case.

Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court in April 2011 sentenced Gitelson in absentia to five years in prison and slapped a 1 million ruble ($17,550) fine on him for embezzling 495 million rubles ($8.7 million) from his acquaintance MP Adnan Muzykayev.

Gitelson’s lawyers seek to overturn the sentence, saying that the banker’s guilt had not been proven. They also argue that the court disregarded his readiness to repay debts to St. Petersburg authorities.