The Investigative Committee opened a bribery case against the ex-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Yurevich

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against the former governor of the Chelyabinsk region, Mikhail Yurevich, on suspicion of receiving a bribe, according to a statement on the Investigative Committee’s website.

The criminal case was opened by the Fourth Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee in Yekaterinburg. Yurevich is suspected of receiving a bribe from Vitaly Teslenko, who was appointed by him to the post of Minister of Health of the Chelyabinsk Region.

Yurevich's press secretary Yulia Bobyleva told Interfax that he is undergoing treatment in Israel until June. “I learned about the criminal case from the media. This was unexpected for him,” the agency quotes Bobyleva as saying. Yurevich declined to comment because “he has too little information about the essence of the case.”

Mikhail Yurevich headed the Chelyabinsk region from 2010 to 2014. Before that, he was the mayor of Chelyabinsk for five years.

Former regional health minister Vitaly Teslenko, arrested back in 2012, was sentenced in 2014 to seven years in prison and a 300 million ruble fine. He was found guilty of receiving bribes worth 70 million rubles in 2011–2012. He made a deal with the investigation and agreed to a special procedure for the trial.