Investigators ask that accountant Maslyayeva, who admitted guilt in 'Serebrennikov case,' be put under house arrest - court
MOSCOW. Oct 6 (Interfax) - Investigators have said that Nina Maslyayeva, the former chief accountant of the autonomous non-commercial organization Studio Seven, who has admitted her guilt in stealing funds from the Platforma cultural project and has testified against other people implicated in the case, including Kirill Serebrenikov, should be put under house arrest.
"The court has received a request from the investigative bodies to put the accused, Maslyayeva, under house arrest," a spokesperson of Moscow's Basmanny District Court, Yunona Tsareva, told Interfax.
The investigators' request will be considered by the court on Friday, Tsareva said.
Maslyayeva was detained on May 23 and arrested on the orders of Moscow's Presnensky District Court two days later. The woman said she "had made a deal with the investigators at the very start" and had admitted her guilt.
It was later reported that Maslyayeva had made incriminating testimony against the people implicated in the case and said that stage director Kirill Serebrennikov was among the organizers of the criminal scheme to steal Platforma's funds. The daughters of the accused also told investigators they were "being regularly subjected to illegal actions," namely surveillance by unknown men, which they believe was organized by their mother's former colleagues to put pressure on her.
Serebrennikov, Maslyayeva, the former Gogol Center director and former general producer of Studio Seven, Alexei Malobrodsky, and the former general director of the organization, Yury Itin, are charged with stealing at least 68 million rubles of budgetary funds provided to Platforma.
Malobrodsky is under arrest, and Itin and Serebrennikov are under house arrest.
Only Maslyayeva has admitted her guilt.
Yekaterina Voronova, former executive director of the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, which, according to the investigators, was to be launched under Platforma but was never staged, is also implicated in the case and has now been declared wanted.
Operatives from the Department for the Protection of the Constitutional System of the Federal Security Service's Second Service are working on the case, according to case materials obtained by Interfax.
Hundreds of Russian cultural figures have spoken out in defense of those implicated in the case.