MOSCOW, October 26 (RAPSI) – The fourth attempt to select jurors in a case against Raul Arashukov, a former adviser to the head of a Gazprom subsidiary, and his son Rauf Arashukov, has failed, attorney Vladimir Postanyuk has told RAPSI.

The Moscow City Court adjourned the hearing until November 17 due to the illness of one of the defendants, the lawyer said.

A case against 14 other defendants has been sent to the Preobrazhensky District Court of Moscow for consideration.

A probe into the Arashukovs, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, revealed that although Raul Arashukov’s total salary made only 65.9 million rubles in 2007 through 2017, whereas Rauf Arashukov received 15.6 million rubles in 2009 through 2018, they could purchase properties worth 1.469 billion rubles. Among the real estate the father and son Arashukovs purchased when holding state and local governmental posts are 75 real estate units, including apartments, apartment blocks, a hotel, a restaurant, a bathing facility, plots of land, vehicles, and luxury articles they, as claimed by the prosecutors, registered in the names of their relatives and employees. The Arashukovs together with other defendants in a 31-billion-ruble (about $431 million at the current exchange rate) gas embezzlement criminal case are in detention at this time.

Investigators claim that Raul Arashukov together with other defendants in the case were involved in gas embezzlement from Gazprom company. This April, Raul Arashukov was also charged with abuse of office and presenting a knowingly false denunciation.

Raul Arashukov pleads not guilty and calls the case against him fabricated.

Rauf Arashukov was arrested and detained in late January 2019. The upper house of parliament stripped him of immunity and gave consent to his prosecution upon an application by the Prosecutor General. He stands charged with murder, participation in a gang and witness tampering.

According to investigators, ex-Federation Council member 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. Moreover, investigators believe that the former senator is implicated to the natural gas embezzlement from Gazprom company, where his father is among the defendants.