MOSCOW, January 19 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova) – The Moscow City Court has upheld a lower court’s ruling to extend detention for the First Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee’s Moscow Directorate, General Denis Nikandrov, who stands charged with taking a large-scale bribe, RAPSI correspondent reports from the court on Thursday.

An appeal against the ruling of the Lefortovsky District Court filed by Nikandrov’s defense was dismissed. Nikandrov, who claimed that his sight got worse after being put in detention, will stay there until March 19 , 2017.

In December, the court extended the detention of Nikandrov and the head of the Investigative Committee’s Internal Security Directorate Mikhail Maksimenko for three months.

On July 20, Maksimenko along with several of his high-ranking colleagues, including his deputy Alexander Lamonov and Nikandrov, were put in jail. Earlier, they have been arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on suspicion of receiving a large-scale bribe.

According to the FSB official website, the agency, along with the Investigative Committee, is carrying out a probe into the criminal case against the suspects over alleged abuse of office and receiving bribes from some representatives of the criminal community.

In late July, various media outlets reported that Maksimenko and his colleagues had been arrested as a part of the investigation into a criminal case over extortion of 8 million rubles ($123,400) that involved alleged gang leader Zakhariy Kalashov also known in the criminal world as Shakro Molodoi.