At least free

The Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court overturned the sentence of businessman Alexei Kozlov, who received five years in prison for fraud. This was reported by the Russian Agency for Legal and Judicial Information. According to the decision of the board, Kozlov was released from custody. The case will be sent for review; before and during the resumption of the judicial investigation, Kozlov will be under recognizance not to leave the place.

Thus, the verdict of the Presnensky District Court of Moscow, the ruling of the cassation board of the Moscow City Court, which confirmed it, and the ruling of the Presidium of the Moscow City Court, which commuted the sentence but found Kozlov guilty, were overturned.

Kozlov's lawyer Yuri Kostanov, who demanded that the case be dismissed, is not satisfied with the decision of the Supreme Court. According to him, “the case had to be stopped immediately, otherwise we would have to go through this hassle through the authorities again.” Kozlov has been in prison for more than three years. His wife Olga Romanova, who spoke at the trial as a public defender, alleged gross violations of criminal procedural law in relation to her husband, in particular, that key witnesses were not questioned.

On July 6, the Supreme Court had already overturned the verdict and sent a cassation appeal to the Presidium of the Moscow City Court, but the Moscow City Court after that only reduced Kozlov’s term of imprisonment from eight years to five due to the fact that on March 7, changes were adopted to the federal law, according to which the lower limits were excluded penalties under the fraud article.

The case against Kozlov was initiated in 2007, after he decided to leave the business of the Finvest company, which he headed. According to unconfirmed reports, the initiator of the case was his business partner, former senator Vladimir Slutsker. According to Romanova, the documents used by the investigation against Kozlov were sent by fax directly from Slutsker’s office (at that time he was still working in the upper house). At the same time, Kozlov’s case was conducted by the same investigative group that a year later conducted the case of Sergei Magnitsky.

In September 2010, Olga Romanova filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General's Office. She claimed that the case against her husband was fabricated and demanded a legal assessment of Slutsker’s actions. At that moment, Slutsker had just lost his seat in the Federation Council and, as a result, his immunity.