Former Tula Region Governor Dudka's defense appeals his sentence
TULA. July 24 (Interfax) - The defense of former Tula Region Governor Vyacheslav Dudka has appealed his sentence, regional court department spokesperson Olga Dyachuk told Interfax.
"The appeal will be submitted to the Tula Regional Court upon observance of the formalities. The date of the court hearing of the appeal will be announced later," Dyachuk said.
She did not say whether or not lawyers of the second defendant, former director of the property and land department Viktor Volkov, had appealed his sentence. Volkov was sentenced to 2.5 years in a high-security penitentiary and released in the courtroom.
The Tula Sovetsky District Court found Dudka guilty of bribery and sentenced him to 9.5 years in jail and a fine of 900,000 rubles on Monday.
In addition, Dudka was stripped of all ranks and state awards and denied the right to hold state positions for the period of three years.
In November 2010, Volkov conspired with Dudka, who was the Tula region governor at the time, and received a 40-million-ruble bribe from the Corporation GRINN company managing director through an intermediary. Investigators think that the money was received for renting Corporation GRINN a piece of land of 25,574 square meters in Tula for mall construction.
The criminal case on Dudka, who left his position of his own volition in late July 2011, was opened in September 5, 2011. Dudka was accused of "receiving an especially large-scale bribe committed by a group."