MOSCOW, February 2 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court has ruled to keep two officers of the Interior Ministry's Economic Security and Anti-Corruption Department, suspected of abuse of office, to stay in detention until February 21, RAPSI learnt in the court on Thursday.

The court partially upheld the ruling of Moscow’s Presnensky District Court, which earlier ordered to detain defendants in the case, Alexander Sobol and Sergey Abramov. The Moscow City Court fixed a mistake made by the lower court, changing the ruling’s term “exceptionally grave crime” to “grave crime”.

On November 21, Russian authorities opened a criminal case against Sobol and Abramov. Later Abramov was arrested, along with Vladimir Alferov, who was allegedly helping Abramov to conduct unlawful operation to expose criminals involved in corruption. According to media reports, Sobol is another defendant in this case.

On December 10, the Presnensky District Court detained Abramov and Alferov.

This case is related to a criminal case against Sergey Cherenkov and Sergey Pokhilyuk who were found guilty of trying to “sell” membership in the United Russia party. The sentence was later revoked.

According to case documents, on September 30, 2013, Abramov and other unidentified officers of the Department, with the assistance of Alferov, provoked Cherenkov and Pokhilyuk to commit fraud. Allegedly Alferov presented himself as representative of “Kiwi” company and transferred 5 million rubles ($81,000) for membership in United Russia. Later Cherenkov and Pokhilyuk became defendants in a fraud case.