The 235th Garrison Military Court in Moscow sentenced former Deputy Chief of the General Staff Khalil Arslanov to 17 years in a high-security colony for fraud and bribery on a particularly large scale, reports TASS. The colonel-general was also ordered to pay a fine of 24 million rubles.
The prosecution requested a 19-year sentence for the military officer.
Arslanov was arrested in February 2020, and the accused in this case also include the head of the Ministry of Defense's procurement department Pavel Kutakhov and the head of the 1st Directorate of the Main Communications Directorate of the Armed Forces Major General Alexander Ogloblin.
According to the investigation, the accused concluded state contracts on behalf of the Ministry of Defense with the company "Voentelecom" for the supply of equipment for ground satellite communication stations and monitoring centers at inflated prices. As a result, they embezzled 6.7 billion rubles during the execution of the contracts.
During the trial, the military officer and his defense insisted that the mentioned radios could not have a market value since they are supplied only for military needs.
Kutakhov and Ogloblin have already been sentenced to seven and six years in prison, respectively.
Additionally, Arslanov was accused of extorting a 12 million ruble bribe from the former director of the Yaroslavl Radio Plant and of fraud in the supply of R-187-P1 "Azart" radios to the Russian Armed Forces.
Photo: TASS