ST. PETERSBURG, May 20 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) - The Kuybyshevsky District Court of St. Petersburg on Thursday sentenced former vice-governor of St. Petersburg Marat Oganesyan to 5.5 years in high-security penal colony graft and embezzlement of funds allocated for the construction of the city’s Arena football stadium, the United press service of St. Petersburg courts told RAPSI.
As Oganesyan spent 4.5 years under house arrest, this term was included in the imprisonment. Thus, he is to be held 1 year in prison.
Additionally, the defendant was fined 20 million rubles (over $270,000).
Another two defendants, ex-first deputy chair of the St. Petersburg Construction Committee Alexander Yanchik and head of StroyElectroMontazh–5 (SEM-5) firm Vasily Slivkin received 5 and 4.5 years in high-security penal colony. Yanchik was also fined 5 million rubles.
Other persons involved in the case received only fines as sentence. Ex-CEO of the Aleksandrinsky Theatre Grigory Popov was fined 1.2 million rubles; CEO of Scenic Workshops company Vladimir Khalif was ordered to pay 800,000 rubles; his subordinates Yelena Kovaleva and Artem Kuspits are to pay 900,000 and 800,000 rubles respectively. However, they were released from punishment due to the expiry of statue of limitations.
Kirill Slivkin, the son of the head of StroyElectroMontazh–5 (SEM-5) and chief economist of the company Nicolay Khripunov were fined 300,000 and 2.8 million rubles respectively. Their punishment was not overturned.
Moreover, the court granted a civil claim in the amount of 50.5 million rubles filed by the injured party in the case, Inzhtransstroy – SPb.
A prosecutor earlier demanded 16 years in penal colony, a fine of 60 million rubles ($800,000) for Oganesyan and prison terms ranging from 4 to 16 years for other defendants.
According to case files, the Investigative Committee’s Main Investigation Department in collaboration with the Federal Security Service (FSB) and police established the fact of embezzlement of funds in the amount of more than 50 million rubles (about $800,000) when the general contractor Transstroy and Scenic Workshops company entered into a contract on supply of a video board of a football stadium in 2014. Oganesyan was responsible for the construction of the stadium.
Investigators claimed that Oganesyan ensured illegal involvement of Scenic Workshops as a subcontractor and transferred from the city budget a prepaid expense of more than 50 million rubles to the enterprise. Later, the money was subsequently stolen through sham firms.
According to the prosecution, Oganesyan and Yanchik received a bribe from Popov through the medition of Khalif, Kovaleva and Kuspits.
Thus, the prosecutor said in court, Oganesyan received 25.5 million rubles, Yanchik 2.5 million rubles. Popov, Khalif, Kovaleva and Kuspits allegedly divided another 22 million rubles.
Vasily Slivkin, the director of StroyElektroMontazh-5, a company that participated in the construction of the St. Petersburg Arena football stadium, is also involved in the case. He is charged with giving Oganesyan 20 million rubles as ensuring a contract for installing illumination and outdoor highlighting of the stadium through his son.
