MOSCOW, January 2 (Itar-Tass) —— Polish police have detained Alexander Ignatenko, former first deputy prosecutor of the Moscow region, Investigation Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said on Monday, January 2.
Ignatenko was put on the Interpol wanted list by Moscow’s Basmanny District court’s ruling in an illegal gambling case. The court also issued an arrest warrant for Ignatenko and charged him in absentia with fraud and bribe-taking.
Interpol’s Russian office confirmed to Itar-Tass that it had been notified by Poland about Ignatenko’s detention for 48 hours, after which the judicial authorities will have to decide on his further detention.
“Interpol’s national bureau at the Russian Interior Ministry has already sent a confirmation to Poland that he is wanted by police,” the bureau said.
If Ignatenko is extradited to Russia, “he will be handed over to investigators of the Russian Investigation Committee for the necessary procedural activities. He will be put in custody and officially charged,” Markin said.
Ignatenko is the only person charged in the so-called “gambling case” to have been put on an international wanted list.
He was charged on June 28, 2011. According to the investigators, Ignatenko received more than 47 million roubles worth of bribes in cash or other property and benefits from July 2009 to February 2011.
He is also charged with fraud with regard to Ivan Nazarov, who is believed to be the organiser of the gambling business, to whom, the investigator claim, he had sold a plot of land in the Moscow region for 2 million roubles even though he had no right to do so.
On July 13, 2011, the Basmanny District Court issued an arrest warrant for Ignatenko. On August 1, the Moscow City Court upheld the verdict.
Investigator Denis Nikandrov put Ignatenko on the international wanted list on July1, but the Basmanny District Court later overruled that decision as unlawful. Ignatenko was officially put back on the international wanted list on November 7, 2011 when the Prosecutor General’s Office had confirmed that there were serious enough reasons for that.
Ignatenko was detained on Monday morning in the resort town of Zakopane, where he had come two days ago on a Lithuanian passport for a rendezvous with his family. On the way out of the town, his car was stopped by Polish law enforcement agencies. Ignatenko did not put up resistance during the detention, Polish RFM Fm radio said earlier.
He is now being transported to Warsaw. The question of his deportation to Russia will be decided shortly.