Court to announce sentence for former minister Ulyukayev Dec 15

MOSCOW, Dec 7 (PRIME) -- The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow will announce a sentence to former Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev under a U.S. $2 million bribery case on December 15, Judge Larisa Semyonova said during a court hearing on Thursday.

Ulyukayev, the first government official arrested on suspicions of corruption, allegedly received the $2 million bribe in November 2016 for a positive outlook on privatization of oil company Bashneft by Rosneft. He pleaded not guilty in August 2017 and said it was a setup organized by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin and the Federal Security Service.

Prosecutor Pavel Filipchuk said during the court hearing that Sechin did not provoke Ulyukayev to take the bribe. “Sechin should have offered the money first for us to see the bribe as a provocation. But we have definitely proved that Ulyukayev was the first to demand a bribe,” he said.

Filipchuk also said he did not believe in the theory of Ulyukayev that Sechin deliberately framed the former minister as the latter stated the theory only at the end of the investigation. “All this time Ulyukayev was concealing the motive of the false accusation, depriving the investigation and the court of a chance to check it,” he said, adding that Ulyukayev was never against the deal and was unable to block it.

On Monday, Prosecutor Boris Neporozhny asked the court to punish Ulyukayev with 10 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony and to oblige him to return the $2 million bribe to Sechin. He also asked the court to deprive the former minister of the rank of an honored economist and of all state awards and decorations, and to prohibit him from occupying any public positions in the future.

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