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Court bans Dudka being under home arrest to make media statements

The former governor of the Tula Region Vyacheslav Dudka is accused of taking 40 million roubles in bribe

MOSCOW, September 23 (Itar-Tass) —— The Moscow City Court found lawful the home arrest verdict against the former governor of the Tula Region Vyacheslav Dudka, who is accused of taking 40 million roubles in bribe, the press service of the Moscow City Court told Itar-Tass on Friday.

The court turned down an appeal from the lawyers against the verdict of a lower instance.

Dudka’s lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov elaborated that if the home arrest was initially appealed, the defence changed its demands and the lawyer requested in the Moscow City Court only to lift some restrictions from his client, particularly the ban for media statements.

“We asked to change the verdict concerning restrictions and bans, because they were worded incorrectly, for instance, according to the court verdict, I as a lawyer cannot visit him. He also cannot make any media statements over the criminal case,” Zherebenkov elaborated. According to him, the prosecutor’s office supported the position of the defence. “A spokesperson of the Prosecutor General’s Office also acknowledged that the court verdict is formulated incorrectly and asked to revise it,” the lawyer said.

However, the Moscow City Court upheld the verdict of the Basmanny District Court. “This proves again that the court does not protect the rights and freedoms of people, but defenses the legal practice,” the lawyer believes.

He also noted that he had not received an answer from the detective to a defence appeal to interrogate as a witness Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Central Federal District and St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko in the Dudka criminal case. “The investigators have ten days to take a decision on this issue, then this deadline may be extended for a month. But in any case, if we are denied it, we will seek to achieve it (Poltavchenko’s interrogation) through the court,” Dudka’s lawyer said.

On September 6, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow put the former governor under home arrest imposing several restrictions on him. Dudka is staying in the village of Khomyakovo in the Tula Region. On September 5, he was accused of taking 40 million roubles in bribe. The detectives believe that in the spring of 2010 the former governor together with the director of the department of real estate and land property relations in the Tula Region Viktor Volkov gave a land plot of 2.5 hectares in Tula to build a supermarket to the GRINN Corporation.

The article, which Dudka is charged with, namely taking a massive bribe by a group through a preliminary conspiracy or an organized group, envisages from seven to 12 years in prison with a probable fine of up to one million roubles.