Ulyukayev delivered to prison in a region close to Moscow - public monitoring commission
MOSCOW. May 31 (Interfax) - The former minister of economic development, Alexei Ulyukayev, who was sentenced to eight years at a high-security facility, has arrived to the prison where he will serve his sentence, the Public Monitoring Commission's deputy chairman Eva Merkacheva told Interfax on Thursday.
"Ulyukayev has already been delivered to the penal colony where he had been sent by train today. This is definitely not in the Moscow region, because there are no high-security facilities in the Moscow region," Merkacheva said.
At the same time, the ex-minister will be serving his sentence in a region not far from Moscow, given that moving him there took no more than four hours, she said.
Earlier on Thursday a spokesperson for the Federal Penitentiary Service told Interfax that Ulyukayev had been sent from Moscow to the location where he will serve his sentence.
On December 15, 2017, Zamoskvoretsky Court in Moscow found Ulyukayev, who is now 62, guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from the Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and sentenced him to eight years at a high-security facility and imposed an eight-year ban from public office or a state corporation job.
The court also fined Ulyukayev more than 130 million rubles. According to the court ruling, before the fine is paid, the freeze on his assets, namely: land plots, property, car, house, money on bank accounts and cash seized during searches, precious metal coins, wrist watches, a silver ingot, a silver bookmark, will remain in place.
On April 12, 2018, Moscow City Court upheld the verdict as legal and substantiated, with only minor changes.
Ulyukayev has maintained his innocence throughout and insists that it was a provocation on the part of the Rosneft chief and the Federal Security Service.