MOSCOW, June 1 (RAPSI) – The Basmanny District Court of Moscow has detained one more defendant in a criminal case of Dmitry Zakharchenko, Russian anti-corruption official charged with receiving a large-scale bribe, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday.
Viktor Kluzhenkov is charged with mediation in bribe-taking. The court found that he had never officially worked anywhere. The defendant denies guilt and claims that he does not know Zakharchenko.
According to investigator, Kluzhenkov worked as a driver for a family of the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) employee Dmitry Senin. However, Kluzhenkov’s defense noted that the defendant worked for Senin’s family from 2015 while the alleged crime was committed in 2014.
The case documents read that General-Major of the police Aleksey Laushkin was interrogated as part of investigation into the criminal case against Kluzhenkov. Laushkin is a former head of the National Guard’s Directorate for the Moscow Region. The defendant denies that he knows Laushkin as well.
Russian anti-corruption official, Dmitry Zakharchenko, was arrested on September 8, 2016. During searches at the apartment belonging to Zakharchenko’s sister law enforcement officers found around nine billion rubles (about $155 million).
Zakharchenko himself denies any relation to seized funds.
Zakharchenko was charged with receiving a 7 million-ruble ($107,600) bribe from an unknown source. He has also been charged with abuse of office and hindering the conduct of preliminary investigation. On March 2, it was revealed that he is charged with two more instances of corruption crimes.
According to case papers, the father of Dmitry Zakharchenko, Viktor, is charged with being an accessory to embezzlement.
His father also pleads not guilty to embezzlement.