Putin fired Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Romanov

President Vladimir Putin dismissed Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs - Head of the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexander Romanov from the post of Colonel General of Justice. The decree was published on the official legal information portal.

TASS, citing sources , writes that Romanov has already been interrogated as a witness in a criminal case against his deputies Alexander Biryukov and Alexander Krakovsky.

On April 3, two of Romanov’s deputies, Biryukov and Krakovsky, were placed under arrest in the case of abuse of official powers (Part 3 of Article 285 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, they are involved in the transfer from pre-trial detention center to house arrest of the former owner of the construction company Optima Development, Albert Khudoyan.

According to the Investigative Committee, Major General Biryukov reported false information to his boss Romanov about “allegedly gross violations of procedural norms during the investigation of the developer’s case in the main investigative department of the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow” and convinced him to transfer the case to his department.

On April 7, Kommersant wrote that Romanov was suspended from work for the duration of the inspection. The newspaper's interlocutors connected this with the arrest of Biryukov and Krakovsky.

Updated at 10 p.m. Added TASS information.