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Court to rule on extending stage director Serebrennikov's house arrest

The director is accused of embezzling funds allocated for a theater project

MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. The Moscow Basmanny Court will consider the petition of the investigation to extend the term of house arrest to stage director Kirill Serebrennikov until January 19 on Tuesday, the Court told TASS. The director is accused of embezzling funds allocated for a theater project.

The investigation also requested to extend the house arrest to former Director General and Chief Accountant of the Seventh Studio Yuri Itin and Nina Maslyayeva also until January 19, 2018 and to detain former director of the Gogol-Center Theater Alexei Malobrodsky for another three months.

Serebrennikov was detained in St. Petersburg on August 22 on suspicion of embezzling 68 mln rubles ($1.18 mln) earmarked in 2011-2014 to implement the Platform project. The theater director was charged with embezzlement while Moscow’s Basmanny Court placed him under house arrest until October 19 on the request of the Investigative Committee.

Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said earlier that the stage director’s guilt was confirmed by eye-witnesses’ testimony, the results of investigative activities and financial documents seized during searches.

As part of the criminal probe, investigators earlier detained former director of the Gogol-Center Theater Alexei Malobrodsky, and also former Director General and Chief Accountant of the Seventh Studio Yuri Itin and Nina Maslyayeva.

The Moscow City Court earlier read out the testimony by Maslyayeva who pointed to Serebrennikov as the organizer of the criminal scheme. Producer Yekaterina Voronova has been put on a federal wanted list.

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