Former Sakhalin Governor Alexander Khoroshavin, who is serving 13 years in a maximum security prison for corruption, has been charged with 20 counts of bribery, the Russian Investigative Committee (RIC) reported . His accomplices were high-ranking regional officials, and the bribes amounted to tens of millions of rubles, RIC spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko reported.

Among Khoroshavin's accomplices are the head of his secretariat Vyacheslav Gorbachev; former deputy head of the office of the governor and government of the Sakhalin region Anatoly Makarov; former mayor of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Andrei Lobkin and vice-mayor Aleksei Leskin. Lobkin and Makarov are hiding from the investigation abroad, the Investigative Committee reminds. "They are charged with committing a total of 20 crimes under Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code (accepting a bribe committed by an organized group on an especially large scale)," Petrenko said.

Among the new episodes of bribery are 18 cases of receiving bribes in the amount of 2 to 10 million rubles from 18 individuals, a bribe for assistance in the election campaign for the elections to the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Duma and a bribe for refusing to interfere with the election process, the Investigative Committee writes. Khoroshavin intentionally, using his official position, created the conditions for receiving these bribes, the Investigative Committee claims.

At the end of May, Kommersant reported that part of the cash seized from Khoroshavin had disappeared. In total, 280 million rubles, $6 million, 727,000 euros, 388,000 Swiss francs and 217,000 pounds sterling were found during searches of the former governor.

Former Governor Khoroshavin Accused of Twenty More Bribes