MOSCOW, April 25 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court has overturned a lower court’s refusal to release an accomplice of ex-deputy chief of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) Oleg Korshunov, entrepreneur Marina Dyukova convicted of embezzlement, on parole, the court’s press service has told RAPSI.

Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court has been ordered to consider the matter by differently constituted bench.

In late March, the court dismissed a parole petition filed by Dyukova. The woman applied for parole on the grounds of her guilty plea, partial compensation for damage caused and a good conduct certificate from a penal colony administration. Prosecutors and victims objected in court to her release.

In December 2018, the Moscow City Court upheld a 2.5-year prison sentence of Dyukova.

The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow convicted Dyukova, an accessory of Korshunov to large-scale embezzlement, in November 2018. The case was heard under a special procedure without examination of evidence and witness interrogation because the defendant pleaded guilty and cooperated with the investigators.

According to investigation, Dyukova conspired with Korshunov and another FSIN official Svetlana Alekseyeva to steal budget money allocated for centralized purchase of fuel and sugar for penitentiary facilities in 2016. Officials, in turn, promised to sign overpriced contracts with her.

Investigators claimed that Alekseyeva included certainly impracticable demands of supplies of more than 7,000 tons of sugar to penitentiary facilities across Russia within 20 days in tender product purchase documentation. Dyukova in turn submitted to the FSIN commercial proposals on sugar delivery at overvalued prices by companies affiliated to her and not engaged in sugar supplies.

As a result of an illegal auction, Korshunov acting on behalf of the Federal Penitentiary Service signed a sugar delivery contract with Dyukova’s firm at an inflated price. Korshunov paid Dyukova over 399 million rubles ($6 million), 43 million (about $650,000) of which were stolen by the accomplices, the Investigative Committee’s statement reads.

Korshunov is currently a defendant in several other criminal cases including embezzlement, corruption and abuse of office. One more his accomplice, businessman Smbat Arutyunyan has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.

Korshunov was appointed to the post of FSIN deputy head in March 2014. He has been bestowed the rank of Full State Counsellor 2nd Class of the Russian Federation. In October 2017, President Vladimir Putin relieved him of the post.