Yesterday a Moscow court prolonged the house arrest of US citizen Michael Calvey, French Philippe Delpal and other Baring Vostok executives for another month, until February 13.
As reported by the TASS news agency, the investigation into the case is completed. All the defendants are charged with “embezzlement committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale” based on article 160 of the Russian Criminal Code.
A Baring Vostok official representative described the decision as “unjustified,” Reuters reported.
Calvey and Delpal – along with Russian citizens Vagan Agbaryan, Alexey Kordichev, Alexander Tsakunov, Maxim Vladimirov, Ivan Zyuzin – were arrested in February 2019. Their arrest and their initial placement in pre-trial detention based on controversial motives shocked the business community in Russia and beyond.
The involvement of Artem Avetisyan, the plaintiff in the case, in an array of government-related organizations, raised speculations about the level of knowledge and involvement of the Russian government and president in the case.
Maintaining their innocence in yesterday’s hearings, Calvey and Delpal asked for release on bail in the amount of 25 million rubles ($407,860) each.
“At first I was accused of fraud, now they change it to embezzlement, but it is even more absurd and has nothing to do with reality. I am ready to prove this,” TASS quoted Delpal as saying.
