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Bribe in Russian Investigative Committee’s corruption case equals €500,000 — lawyer

It was reported last week that Investigative Committee’s official Denis Nikandrov had been detained along with several other investigative officers on suspicion of corruption

MOSCOW, July 28. /TASS/. The bribe to high-placed officials in Russia’s Investigative Committee equals 500,000 as the materials of the case suggest, lawyer for a suspect Olga Lukmanova told TASS on Thursday.

The lawyer represents the interests of Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee’s Internal Security Directorate Alexander Lamonov.

"According to the materials of the case, the sum of the bribe equals 500,000 euros. The investigation has not specified who and when received it. The money has not been exposed either," the lawyer said.

The accusations in the bribery case are of relative nature, the lawyer said. "The materials only say that Nikandrov, Maximenko and Lamonov received … But there are no specific details: when, where and under which circumstances - the investigator does not indicate any of these factors," the lawyer said.

In these conditions, the counsel for the defense intends to seek Lamonov’s full release instead of seeking to mitigate a measure of his restraint, the lawyer said.

"The talk is not even about a house arrest but about his release because there is no evidential base," Lukmanova said.

It was reported last week that First Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee’s Main Investigative Department for Moscow Denis Nikandrov had been detained along with several other investigative officers on suspicion of corruption.

Nikandrov hit the headlines in the early 2000s when he was investigating economic crimes and corruption. In 2008, he was investigating the case of former Head of the Investigative Committee’s Main Investigative Department Dmitry Dovgiy and former Section Head of the Investigative Directorate of Russia’s Main Military Prosecutor’s Office Andrei Sagura accused of bribe-taking.

Nikandrov also took part in the investigation of the second criminal case against oil company Yukos and was also in charge of a fraud probe against Director of the Bureau for Coordination of Organized Crime Fight in CIS States Alexander Bokov.

From 2011, he headed an investigative group to probe the case of Moscow Region prosecutors accused of "sheltering" illegal casinos.