MOSCOW, August 8 (RIA Novosti) – A Moscow court on Thursday ordered former Rosbank CEO Vladimir Golubkov, accused of accepting a $160,000 bribe, to be transferred from house arrest to a pretrial detention center until October 16, his lawyer said.
According to lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov, the court’s decision was based on a report by an investigator who claimed that Golubkov had violated the conditions of his house arrest by talking with his driver and meeting with other people after leaving his apartment.
“But Golubkov’s meetings with his driver have been authorized by the lead investigator, and Golubkov was also allowed to leave his apartment for two hours every day as part of the house arrest conditions set by the Moscow City Court on May 17,” the lawyer said.
He added that Golubkov had not violated those conditions and that the court’s decision was illegal. “We will certainly appeal the decision tomorrow,” Kharitonov said.
In May, police detained Golubkov, who had headed the bank since 2008, while he was apparently accepting 5 million rubles ($160,000) as part of a larger $1.5 million alleged kickback from a representative of a private company. The bank exec was allegedly trying to extort the money from Andrei Kovalyov, a former member of the Moscow city legislature and a rock musician, in order to restructure an $80 million debt.
Investigators believe that a former senior vice president of Rosbank, Tamara Polyanitsyna, was also involved in the deal. Both executives face fines of up to 70 times the size of the bribe and prison terms of up to seven years.
Rosbank is a private universal bank within the Societe Generale banking group. It provides banking services to private and corporate clients and has more than 600 offices in 340 cities and towns across Russia. It is one of Russia's top 10 banks by asset size.
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