MOSCOW, April 20 (RAPSI, Nikolay Merkulov) – The Moscow City Court has sentenced ex-chief of the Investigative Committee’s Internal Security Directorate Mikhail Maksimenko to 13 years in a penal colony for taking especially large-scale bribes, RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom.

Maksimenko was found guilty of taking two bribes. The defendant was also fined 165 million rubles ($2.8 million) and deprived of his colonel of justice rank.

According to prosecutors, in 2016, Maksimenko and his accomplice received $500,000 bribe for help with one of criminal cases. He is also charged with taking $50,000 bribe in 2015 for organizing unlawful criminal prosecution of law enforcement officers in the interests of a bribe-giver.

The defendant has been arrested along with other high-ranking investigators, his deputy Alexander Lamonov and the First Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee’s Moscow Directorate, General Denis Nikandrov.

The three officers were charged with taking €500,000 from alleged gang leader Zakhariy Kalashov, who was sentenced to 9 years and 10 months in a high security penal colony on March 29.