MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax) - The Moscow City Court has ruled to relieve Konstantin Korishchenko, former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) and former Investbank board director sentenced to seven years in prison for massive embezzlement, of serving his sentence due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, the court told Interfax.
"Korishchenko has been relieved of his penalty due to the expiration of the statute of limitations," the court said.
The court handed down an identical ruling with respect to Maxim Palchun, who was also convicted in the same case before.
"Korishchenko and Palchun were freed from custody in the courtroom. The rest of the Moscow's Tagansky District Court sentence dated September 19, 2023 has been left unchanged," the Moscow City Court said.
As reported earlier, the Tagansky District Court found Korishchenko and Palchun guilty of massive embezzlement and sentenced each of them to seven years in a general security penitentiary. The court also fined them 1 million rubles each.
The court also ordered that Korishchenko and Palchun jointly pay 549,250,300 rubles to the Deposit Insurance Agency state corporation in pecuniary damage.
Investigators concluded that in 2013, the defendants embezzled valuable assets from Investbank through legal entities they controlled in exchange for fictitious promissory notes and guaranty bonds, leaving the lender bankrupt and shifting liability to depositors to the state.
As reported, the amount of damage estimated in the case was approximately 1.4 billion rubles.
Korishchenko was detained in the summer of 2021. A court ruled in 2022 to declare him bankrupt and launch a procedure to sell his property.
From 2002 to 2008, Korishchenko was deputy governor of the Russian Central Bank while chairing the board of directors of the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX), which he went on to lead in 2008-2010. In 2010-2012, he was the head of the Russian office of Merrill Lynch, and in 2012-2013, he worked for Investbank, which was eventually stripped of its license.