Translated material
The Sverdlovsk Regional Court arrested in absentia the ex-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Yurevich, accused of taking a bribe
The Sverdlovsk Regional Court arrested in absentia for two months Mikhail Yurevich, the governor of the Chelyabinsk region in 2010-2014, accused of taking a bribe and inciting libel, reports . RIA Novosti
The court overturned the decision of the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg, which rejected the investigator’s request for arrest in absentia, finding that the investigator did not provide objective evidence of Yurevich’s refusal to return to Russia upon completion of treatment.
On March 16, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against the ex-governor “for receiving a bribe <...> from Vitaly Teslenko, appointed by Yurevich to the post of Minister of Health of the Chelyabinsk Region.” At the time of the possible transfer of bribes, Yurevich held the position of head of the region.
A few days after the initiation of the case, the investigator issued a resolution to charge Yurevich as a defendant under Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code (taking a bribe) and Part 4 of Article 33, Part 2 of Article 128.1 of the Criminal Code (incitement to libel). According to investigators, the governor regularly received bribes from Teslenko, their amount amounted to 26 million rubles. The Investigative Committee claims that in addition to this, he incited his deputy Oleg Grachev to slander the chairman of the Chelyabinsk Regional Court. We are talking about the broadcast of Channel One from December 2012. A year later, following a court decision, the TV channel issued a refutation.
On March 17 and 20, Yurevich did not come for interrogations, but reported in writing that he was in Israel. He then failed to appear for questioning on April 10. Yurevich’s lawyer, Igor Trunov, referred to his client’s state of health, and also provided investigators with documents from a London medical institution, according to which Yurevich cannot be in custody due to illness. On May 5 he was put on the wanted list.