MOSCOW, May 12 (RAPSI) – Alexander Potkin, also known as Alexander Belov, former head of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against his detention in BTA Bank embezzlement case, Vedomosti newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Belov claims that the court did not have sufficient grounds for placing him under house arrest and then in pretrial detention, the newspaper writes.
Belov was arrested on October 15, 2014 at the Hotel Intourist Kolomenskoe in Moscow on charges related to the embezzlement of $5 billion from BTA Bank. At the time of the arrest, Belov allegedly had documents on him that effectively tied him to the embezzlement.

The court initially placed Belov under house arrest, but later sent him to a pretrial detention center.

Investigators believe that Belov (Potkin) was a mastermind in a money laundering operation in 2012-2014. He was also suspected of involvement in laundering money that was embezzled from BTA Bank by its former chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.

Ablyazov, who allegedly defrauded BTA Bank of more than $6 billion, left Kazakhstan for the UK, where he was granted political asylum in 2011.
Belov, who is also a suspect in an extremism case, was placed in pretrial detention until November 30.

His attorneys deny the charges claiming that they are unsubstantiated and that he is being persecuted for political reasons.