MOSCOW, October 6 (RAPSI, Nikolay Merkulov) – Prosecutor demanded a 5-year prison term and a 1-million-ruble fine ($17,400) for former Deputy Culture Minister Grigory Pirumov charged with embezzlement of public funds allocated for restoration of cultural heritage objects, RAPSI reported from Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky District Court.

Russia’s Ministry of Culture, the victim in the case, asked the court to give Pirumov noncustodial sentence.

Prosecutor also sought suspended sentence ranging from 2 to 4.5 years for other defendants in the case, project manager of companies Stroykomplekt and Baltstroy Vladimir Svanbek, BaltStroy manager Alexander Kochenov, head of the Center of restoration Oleg Ivanov, and director of the Ministry’s department of property management and investment policy Boris Mazo, businessman Andrey Kokushkin and ex-director of the State Center of Contemporary Art Mikhail Mindlin.

The sentence will be handed down on October 9, according to the court’s spokesperson Yevgeniya Gorokhova.

In late August, BaltStroy head Dmitry Sergeyev received a 4.5-year suspended sentence. According to the prosecutor, the fraud involving Sergeyev resulted in the embezzlement of 71 million rubles ($1.2 million) and the defendant himself unlawfully obtained 11 million rubles ($188,000).

In June, it was revealed that former Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Pirumov and other defendants in the case paid about 163 million rubles in damages (about $2.7 million).

Investigators believe that in 2012-2016 the defendants embezzled over 160 million rubles allocated on restoration of the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, Ivanovsky Convent in Moscow and other objects across Russia.

In December 2016, Dmitry Medvedev, the Chairman of the Russian Government, relieved Pirumov of his post.