Dmitry Merkulov was assessed for embezzlement on the third attempt
The former vice-president of the First Czech-Russian Bank must serve 4.5 years and pay damages of 400 million rubles.
Original of this material
© News Agency “RBC”12/26/2023, The ex-deputy head of the bank that financed Le Pen received 4.5 years for embezzlement
Tatyana Zykina
The Basmanny District Court of Moscow sentenced the former vice-president of the First Czech-Russian Bank (FCRB) Dmitry Merkulov to four and a half years in a general regime colony for embezzlement, Kommersant reports.
Merkulov was tried under Part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code, follows from cards in the court database. His case has been pending in court since May 2022. Court hearings were regularly postponed due to the failure of witnesses, lawyers, and other reasons.
The prosecutor’s office demanded eight years in prison for Merkulov, a fine and a ban on engaging in certain types of activities, Kommersant writes. The defense, according to the newspaper, demanded that the defendant be completely acquitted or the case sent for further investigation.
The court refused to recognize certain evidence as inadmissible at the request of the lawyers. As a result, Merkulov was sentenced to four and a half years and ordered to pay 400 million rubles. To the Deposit Insurance Agency, which became the legal successor of the FCRB, as compensation for damages.
One of the defendant’s lawyers, Sergei Starovoitov, told Kommersant that the defense intends to appeal the verdict. The newspaper’s interlocutor noted that the court sentenced Merkulov only on the fourth attempt. He called the decision unfair and not based on the materials of the case.
As the newspaper notes, the materials were repeatedly returned to the investigation for “work on mistakes.” The last return was appealed through the cassation instance by the Prosecutor General’s Office: the department achieved its cancellation and the start of the trial in a new composition.
Former Vice-President of the FCRB arrested in January 2017. According to Kommersant, until the sentencing he remained under recognizance not to leave the place.
Merkulov was accused of signing two transactions for the sale of property owned by the bank during his participation in the management of the FCRB. Initially, the claim against him estimated the damage at 475 million rubles, but then the Deposit Insurance Agency reduced the requirements to 400 million rubles, Kommersant wrote. The organization and the Central Bank consider the signed contracts an attempt to withdraw assets. Merkulov did not admit guilt.
The FCRB provided loans to the French National Front party (now the National Rally), whose leader is Marine Le Pen. At the end of 2014, the party agreed with the bank on a loan of €9 million after Le Pen spoke about the refusal of French banks to lend to her party.
The bank was deprived of its license in 2016 and declared bankrupt. A hole of about 26 billion rubles was discovered in his reporting. In February 2017, after Merkulov’s arrest, the Deposit Insurance Agency discovered a shortage of about 9.3 billion rubles.
In 2018, the owner and chairman of the board of the FCRB Roman Popov and his deputy Olga Arsentyeva were put on the international wanted list. They were accused in absentia of embezzlement of 410 million rubles.
“Kommersant”, 12/26/2023, “The first Czech-Russian person involved”: In court, he categorically denied that he helped sell for next to nothing one of the former premises of the FCRB on 2nd Brestskaya Street in Moscow worth 475 million rubles. By the way, the FCRB itself collapsed due to the low quality of assets and an “inadequate” assessment of the risks taken. […] As lawyers say, during a year and a half of hearings in court, only the representative of the victim and the convicted person, one of the former shadow owners of the Taurus Bank, were questioned, and the testimonies of five more witnesses were simply read out. “The court did not hear our arguments, for example, about ordering a re-examination or further investigation of the case, but we will continue to fight,” the defense representatives emphasized. It is worth noting that Dmitry Merkulov, when recalculating the time spent in a pre-trial detention center as one day of imprisonment for one and a half days in a general regime colony, managed to serve about four years out of the four and a half assigned to him. By the time his complaint is considered, the term may already have expired, even without taking into account the possible reduction of the sentence. — Insert K.ru
