Former officials of the shipbuilding department of the Ministry of Industry and Trade accused of taking bribes for issuing licenses for the production of military equipment were convicted in Moscow. The case was heard again, after the prosecutor’s office succeeded in overturning the sentence, which, in its opinion, was too lenient.
The Presnensky District Court of Moscow has convicted Andrey Bandurov, a former leading specialist in the State Defense Order and Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Shipbuilding Industry and Marine Equipment Department of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, and his colleague in the department, Soslan Geriev. Judge Ekaterina Kirichenko found them guilty of a crime under paragraph “c” part 5 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (receiving a bribe by an official on a large scale).
Bandurov and Geriev were sentenced to seven years in prison to be served in a strict regime correctional colony. In addition, the court banned the defendants from holding positions in the state civil service for three years after serving their sentences.
According to investigators, Bandurov and Geriev received a bribe of 600,000 rubles as part of an operational experiment led by the FSB. from the General Director of the St. Petersburg JSC “TST” Sergey Rogov. As specified on the company’s website, it manufactures and supplies portable, bench and stationary vibration diagnostic complexes and systems to the market, provides vibration diagnostics, balancing and alignment services, and also trains relevant specialists. It was assumed that for a bribe, officials were supposed to assist in obtaining a license for TST JSC for the development, production and sale of weapons and military equipment. The criminal case was initiated in March 2021 in the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for the Central Administrative District of Moscow.
The trial of ex-employees of the Ministry of Industry and Trade ended on the second attempt. The first verdict was handed down on April 11, 2022 by judge Elena Abramova, known for the cases of former police colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko, football players Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamaev, and actor Mikhail Efremov. She, according to the prosecutor’s office, gave ex-officials a too lenient sentence of three years in prison. The supervisory authority filed a motion for a sentence that did not correspond to the gravity of the crime, and the Moscow City Court overturned it on August 23, 2022. Thus, the Presnensky Court had to re-examine the case of Bandurov and Geriev. Lawyer Vyacheslav Galich, in an interview with Vedomosti, declined to comment, since he had not yet received the verdict in writing and had not read it.