MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. Another three embezzlement cases have been opened against a former adviser to the CEO of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz, Raul Arashukov, a TASS correspondent reports from the courtroom. The court is considering the question whether to prolong Arashukov’s arrest.

Raul Arashukov is father of the arrested former senator from the Karachay-Circassian Region Rauf Arashukov — the main defendant in a criminal case opened over the theft of gas worth 31 billion rubles ($500 million) from Gazprom.

"Now we have learned about at least three more criminal cases opened under article 160 of the Criminal Code (Embezzlement) against Raul Arashukov. We have not been notified properly. We learned the news only now when we came to the court session," Arshukov’s lawyer Vladimir Postanyuk said.

According to the lawyer, several weapons confiscated from the Arashukovs during the searches are still being examined.

"Several pieces of firearms were confiscated. It is for several months now that examination is underway with the aim to find out if they are shootable," Postanyuk said, adding that those were not the guns that had been used in the two killings Rauf Arashukov is accused of.

Senator Rauf Arashukov on January 30 was stripped of immunity and detained in the meeting hall of the Federation Council. It was the first-ever such case in the history of the upper house of the Russian parliament. He was charged with collusion with a criminal group, with exerting pressure on witnesses and with masterminding murders of the deputy chief of the youth movement Adyghe Khase, Aslan Zhukov, and adviser to the head of Karachay-Cherkessia Fral Shebzukhov in 2010. On January 31, Rauf Arashukov was arrested. A court in Moscow suspended his Federation Council membership.