MOSCOW. April 10 (Interfax) - Col. Gen. of Justice Alexander Romanov has been dismissed as deputy interior minister and chief of the Interior Ministry Investigative Directorate under a presidential decree, according to the official legal information portal.
The decree was published on the website on Thursday.
A week ago two deputy heads of the Russian Interior Ministry's Investigative Directorate Gen. Alexander Biryukov and Gen. Alexander Krakovsky, and investigator Alexander Bryantsev were detained as part of an abuse of office case.
"Investigative procedures are being conducted on suspicion of the acceptance of an especially large bribe. Two generals, who are deputies to the chief of the Interior Ministry's Investigative Directorate, and an investigator for special cases have been detained," an informed source told Interfax.
The investigation concerns a bribe supposedly given by a businessman, who was detained in June 2019 on charges of $10-mln fraud, the source said.
"It is believed that his pretrial restrictive measure could have been changed for house arrest in exchange for a bribe," the source said.
According to the source, this refers to the granting of house arrest to Albert Khudoyan, the owner of Optima Development.
Interfax has yet to obtain comments on the matter from official sources.
Khudoyan's defense lawyer Sergei Chizhikov told Interfax he was unaware of a bribe or the detentions. "That's right, I've seen those media reports, but I don't have any information on this so far," Chizhikov said.
As reported earlier, Moscow's Tverskoi District Court ruled on November 11, 2019, to place Khudoyan, the owner of Optima Development charged with fraud amounting to more than 2 billion rubles and taken into custody earlier, under house arrest until January 11, 2020.
Lawyer Chizhikov told Interfax at the time that the investigation concluded that "the circumstances of the criminal case show that it is obviously a business-related one, which makes it impossible to lawfully keep Khudoyan in custody."
Khudoyan is charged with massive fraud.
The investigation concluded that Khudoyan, "along with his accomplices, acquired the right to a long-term lease of plots of land through deceit and breach of trust of the owners and managers of a company."
The investigation estimated the damage supposedly caused by the defendants' actions at more than two billion rubles.
The Tverskoi Court ruled initially on June 15, 2019, to place Khudoyan under house arrest, declining the investigation's request to take him into custody. The Moscow City Court later overturned this ruling and ordered that the businessman be jailed pending trial.
Khudoyan's defense has insisted that his prosecution is being used as a tool to pressure him in order to illegally seize his property.