MOSCOW, June 25 (RAPSI) – The lawyers for five convicted embezzlers in the Oboronservis embezzlement case, including former Defense Ministry official Yevgenia Vasilyeva, will appeal their clients’ sentences over mistakes in calculating the damages their clients allegedly did, Izvestia newspaper reported on Thursday.

Vasilyeva, former head of the Defense Ministry’s Property Relations Department, was sentenced on May 8 to five years in prison for fraud, money laundering and abuse of office. Four of her accomplices were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 36 to 51 months.

Izvestia writes that their lawyers will file a claim with the court of appeals over numerous mistakes and discrepancies in the calculation of the damages and embezzled funds under different charges, which vary between 5 million and 10 million rubles ($92,500-$185,000).

“The figures cited in our clients’ sentences contradict each other. For example, they say that 70 million rubles ($1.29mln) was transferred to a certain account, then change the figure to 69 million rubles ($1.27mln), and ultimately claim that 78 million rubles ($1.44mln) was laundered. Furthermore, it is said that [Irina] Yegorova [who was found guilty alongside Vasilyeva], whose company allegedly received 70 million rubles ($1.29mln), laundered 73 million rubles ($1.35mln),” lawyer Yury Gervis told Izvestia.

“The sentence related to the Armed Forces Infrastructure Development Directorate (GUOV) does not explain what happened to 20 million rubles ($0.37mln) if the company embezzled 102 million rubles ($1.9mln) of the 123 million ruble ($2.27mln) transfer. The discrepancies vary from 5 million to 10 million rubles,” Gervis said.

Izvestia writes that Vasilyeva claimed at her trial that the alleged damages were nothing more than a mistake in the investigators’ audits. She provided her own numbers, which showed that mistakes under different charges amounted to tens of millions of rubles. For example, she assessed damages in the case of the Defense Ministry’s military clothing and equipment store Mosvoentorg on Novy Arbat Street at 28.5 million rubles ($527,000), which is more than was officially reported.