Lawyers offer 300 mln ruble bail for Yevtushenkov
MOSCOW. Sept 24 (Interfax) - The representatives and lawyers of AFK Sistema chief Vladimir Yevtushenkov are ready to pay 300 million rubles bail for him.
The relevant request is contained in the case files, the court told Interfax.
On Wednesday Moscow City Court started verifying the legality of the decision to impose house arrest on Yevtushenkov, who is being accused in a money laundering case. The businessman himself did not show up in court.
The judge said at the hearing that the case files contain a request from Yevtushenkov's representative asking for his release on bail. The request came from Sistema President Mikhail Shamolin.
Meanwhile, prosecutors who disagreed with the defense arguments that Yevtushenkov should be released from house arrest, asked for the Russian Prosecutor General's Office's objections to the defense lawyer's complaint to be added to the case files. The prosecutor also asked for the records of Yevtushenkov's questioning and papers seized during searches at Sistema's offices to be added to the dossier as well.
The judge then said that the complaint against Yevtushenkov's house arrest would be heard on September 25. The hearing has been postponed because Yevtushenkov needs to submit the documents the prosecutor had asked for as required by current legislation.
Russian Investigative Committee (RIC) spokesman Vladimir Markin said earlier that AFK Sistema chairman Yevtushenkov had been charged with money laundering.
Meanwhile, the company said the charges against Yevtushenkov were baseless. Other Russian entrepreneurs stood up for the defendant, including the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE), Alexander Shokhin, who sent a petition to President Vladimir Putin drawing his attention to the court order on the defendant.
For his part, a source familiar with the situation told Interfax that Yevtushenkov pleaded not guilty but had given evidence while being questioned.
Other defendants in the case are former Bashneft chief Ural Rakhimov and businessman Levon Airapetyan. A source told Interfax that Rakhimov had now been formally charged and declared an international fugitive. The inquiry was launched in April 2014 but the media only learnt about it in July after Airapetyan's arrest.