MOSCOW, August 26 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal against a penal colony commission’s decision on the prevention registration of ex-anticorruption police colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko as a convict prone to escape, the court’s press service told RAPSI.

The court thus upheld a ruling of the Lefortovsky District Court dismissing the suit of Zakharchenko against the commission’s decision.

Zakharchenko was declared prone to escape in November 2019.

Ex-Russian anti-corruption official Zakharchenko was arrested on September 8, 2016. During searches at his sister’s apartment law enforcement officers found around 9 billion rubles (about $120 million at the current exchange rate). He denied any relation to the seized funds.

In June 2019, Moscow’s Presnensky District Court sentenced Zakharchenko to 13 years in high-security prison for 3-million-ruble corruption crimes and obstruction of the investigation. Additionally, the defendant was ordered to pay a 117-million-ruble fine ($1.5 million), stripped of his police colonel rank and prohibited from holding law enforcement posts for 2 years.

However, the court acquitted him of a $500,000 bribery count. 

The defendant pleaded not guilty.