MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov against his pre-trial detention in a bribery case in which his lawyer said he denies taking kickbacks worth about a billion roubles ($10.9 million).
The Moscow court service said Ivanov’s appeal to be released or placed under house arrest was denied.
In the biggest corruption scandal for years involving a government minister, Ivanov is accused of receiving a “particularly large bribe” in the form of property services from a construction company.
“The point is that allegedly Ivanov’s contractors built facilities for Ivanov for free, which is not true,” state news agency RIA quoted his lawyer Murad Musayev as saying.
“I don’t remember the amount now, about one billion roubles.”
It was the first time such a figure had been mentioned.
Ivanov’s arrest last month by the FSB security service was widely seen as a blow to his boss, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, and as a sign of fighting within the elite as President Vladimir Putin prepares to name a new government at the start of his fifth term.
The Moscow court said it rejected a similar appeal by Sergei Borodin, a friend of Ivanov who is also charged with conspiring to take bribes, against his pre-trial detention.
Alexander Fomin, the co-founder of the construction company that allegedly provided the bribes, was arrested last month soon after Ivanov and Borodin.
Ivanov had appeared in military uniform when first brought to court after his arrest, but was wearing plain clothes in photographs from Wednesday’s hearing.
Interfax news agency quoted his lawyer as saying he had been temporarily removed from his ministerial duties.
RIA said the defence – presumably in order to testify to Ivanov’s good character – had brought to the court four bags of state awards that Ivanov had received. A photograph from the courtroom showed them stacked on a wooden table.
($1 = 91.9060 roubles)
(Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark Trevelyan, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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