MOSCOW, April 28 (RAPSI) - Former deputy head of the Federal Tourism Agency (Rosturizm) Dmitry Amunts has filed an appeal against a 7-year prison sentence given to him for implication in embezzling 29 billion rubles ($457 million) from now-defunct Mezhprombank, his attorney Igor Pastukhov told RAPSI on Friday.

On April 18, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court passed a sentence upon Amunts. In addition to the prison term, the former official was deprived of the right to perform financial and operational activities in the banking sector for 3 years. The court also granted a lawsuit of victims demanding 28.5 billion rubles from the defendant.

Earlier, prosecutor demanded a 7-year prison term for Amunts.

Investigators claim that Amunts along with Alexander Didenko, former Mezhprombank executive, and several other accomplices were members of a criminal group that embezzled the funds from the bank in 2008-2009.

Didenko pleaded guilty and received a 3-year suspended sentence in July 2015. However, in September 2015, the Moscow City Court changed Didenko’s suspended sentence to real jail term.

Amunts has pleaded not guilty.

Mezhprombank’s operating license was revoked in October 2010 by the Central Bank over failure to comply with the regulator’s requirements or to satisfy creditors’ claims. In November Mezhprombank was declared bankrupt. At that time, the bank owed 31.8 billion rubles ($501 million) to the Central Bank while the creditors’ claims totaled 85 billion rubles ($1.3 billion).

Businessman Sergey Pugachev, who owned the bank, was arrested in absentia by a Moscow court and put on the international wanted list in December 2013.