MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Basmanny District Court has refused a 10-million-ruble (over $150,000) bail to a member of Russia’s Federation Council Rauf Arashukov, who stands charged with murder and organizing a gang, RAPSI has reported from the courtroom.
The senator has been put in detention for two months.
The hearing has been held behind closed doors because of threats directed against Arashukov.
Investigators claim that the member of parliament’s upper house was involved in the murder of a Karachay-Cherkessia public youth movement’s deputy chairman Aslan Zhukov and the republican president’s advisor Fral Shebzukhov in 2010.
He has been charged with murder, participation in a gang and witness tampering.
Moreover, investigators believe that the senator is implicated to natural gas embezzlement from Gazprom company.
He was arrested in the Federation Council on January 30. The upper house of parliament stripped Arashukov of his immunity and gave consent to his prosecution upon an application by the Prosecutor General.
Later, his father Raul Arashukov was also arrested on suspicion of embezzling natural gas worth over 30 billion rubles ($455 million) from Gazprom.
