MOSCOW, September 27 (RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov) – The Moscow City Court has upheld the ruling of a lower court on detention of Dmitry Zakharchenko, Russian anti-corruption official, who is charged with receiving a large-scale bribe, RAPSI learned in the courtroom on Tuesday.
The court has dismissed an appeal filed by Zakharchenko’s lawyers against Moscow’s Presnensky District Court’s ruling, which on September 10 put the official in detention until November 8 as a part of a large corruption case.
Earlier, Zakharchenko’s lawyer has insisted to put his client under house arrest or make him pay a 70 million ruble fine ($1,000,000).
As yet, officially Zakharchenko stands charged with receiving 7 million rubles ($107,600) bribe from an unknown source. He has also been charged with abuse of office and hindering the conduct of preliminary investigation.
On September 14, the Interior Ministry’s official spokesman Vladimir Markin said that Zakharchenko is suspected of obtaining 8.5 billion rubles ($130 million) by criminal means. According to Markin, investigators currently are working hard to find out the source of the money seized as evidence as a result of a search at Zakharchenko’s apartment in a bribery case. He added that the seized money was transferred to Russia’s Central Bank for safe keeping.
Zakharchenko himself denies any relation to seized funds.