MOSCOW, August 28 (RAPSI) – Indictment has been approved against State Duma lawmaker Vadim Belousov and his alleged accomplice Margarita Butakova as part of  a 3.2-billion-ruble (about $45 million at the current exchange rate) bribery case, the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia reports.

Investigators claim that from May 2010 to January 2014, Belousov, ex-chief accountant of the First Bread-baking Complex Butakova, ex-governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevich and other accomplices conspired to receive over 3.2 billion rubles from the Autobahn Holding managers for favoritism and assistance in auctions.

In May 2017, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court issued an arrest warrant for Yurevich in absentia on allegations of taking 26 million rubles in bribes and incitement to defamation. 

During the pretrial investigation, upon a prosecutors’ motion the State Duma gave its consent to stripping Belousov of the MP’s immunity and bringing him to criminal liability.