MOSCOW, July 2 (Itar-Tass) - Former deputy prosecutor of Moscow region Alexander Ignatenko who was released from custody on Monday is not on recognizance, his lawyer Alexander Asnis said.
"As of now, Ignatenko is not bound by recognizance, because the investigators have not yet selected a measure of restraint for him," Asnis told Itar-Tass, therefore he is under no restrictions to travel.
However, Asnis noted that his client had no plans to leave and that he would stay at home until completion of the investigation.
"In theory, he can travel anyplace; there are no legal obstacles to it, but he is not going to do so as he is aware that his departure might create obstacles to the investigator. So he will stay at home with his family and will report to the investigator," the lawyer said. The investigator might commit Ignatenko to sign a pledge to stay in the city, but house arrest or custody is out of the question, according to Asnis.
On June 18, the Prosecutor General's Office said the case would be reinvestigated. Asnis expressed the hope then that it would prove his client's innocence.
During preliminary investigation, Ignatenko refused to testify or take part in face-to-face interrogations, saying he would tell everything at the trial.
Ignatenko is accused of taking large bribes worth over 33 million roubles. He denied wrongdoing insisting that he was "interested in ascertaining the truth in the case".
The former prosecutor was extradited to Russia from Poland on February 7, 2013.
In February 2011, the Federal Security Service reported that it had exposed an illegal gambling network in 15 towns of the region. It brought an estimated five to ten million dollars a year in revenue. The network had operated for some three years.
Police said the organizer of illegal business was entrepreneur Ivan Nazarov, who worked with Alla Guseva and Marat Mamyyev. They cooperated with the investigators and were released on recognizance in June 2011. Nazarov said police had contacted him after the gambling ban and offered to pay for covering up his illegal business.
At least 12 former law enforcement officials were suspects. Interpol issued a wanted notice for Ignatenko on charges of fraud and taking 47 million roubles in bribes from suspected masterminds of illegal gambling business. On January 1, 2012, the former prosecutor was detained by Poland’s security agents as he was leaving the Zakopane resort where he had arrived several days before for reunion with his family. He spent a year in a Polish prison awaiting a ruling on his extradition.