MOSCOW. Nov 13 (Interfax) - Head of the Federal Penitentiary Service's main directorate for the Rostov region Muslim Dakhkhayev and his deputies have been detained on suspicion of disclosing a state secret, Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Valery Maksimenko said.
"Yes, the head of the Rostov region's directorate and his deputies have indeed been detained. He is currently charged with disclosing information constituting a state secret," Maksimenko said.
"We can predict that they will be charged with corruption," he said.
An informed source earlier told Interfax about the searches of the offices of Dakhkhayev and his two deputies conducted as part of an investigation into a bribery case.
Maksimenko said Gen. Dakhkhayev and his subordinates had been detained by Federal Security Service operatives in collaboration with officials from the Federal Penitentiary Service's internal security department.
Dakhkhayev earlier served in the police, including in Dagestan in the post of deputy interior minister of the republic. He was decorated with the Order of Courage and awarded with special-service weapons.
The Federal Penitentiary Service's main directorate for the Rostov region was involved in a corruption investigation before Dakhkhayev began working there. In May 2017, it was reported that Sergei Ralnikov, deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service's main directorate for the Rostov region, was detained on suspicion of taking a bribe in an amount of over two million rubles. He was charged with accepting large bribes by a group of people by previous concert.
Dakhkhayev's predecessor, Sergei Smirnov, was dismissed from the post of head of the Federal Penitentiary Service's main directorate for the Rostov region in early July 2017. He was detained in connection with the investigation into the criminal case against Ralnikov later that month. Smirnov, who was terminally ill, died in detention in June 2018.
The case against Ralnikov was sent to the Rostov-on-Don Leninsky District Court to be tried on its merits in late October 2019.