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Former Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh attends a court hearing in Moscow on April 27, 2018.
The former governor of Russia’s Kirov region, Nikita Belykh, was released from prison on June 21 after serving an eight-year prison term on a bribe-taking charge that he has rejected.
Belykh’s lawyer, Andrei Grokhotov, said his client will attend a hearing in five days into an appeal filed by prosecutors and Belykh’s defense team regarding a court ruling last year on a different case against the former governor.
In late December, a court in the Kirov region sentenced Belykh to an additional 2 1/2 years in prison on a charge of abuse of power but spared him from serving the punishment citing the statute of limitations.
Meanwhile, prosecutors sought an additional 12 years for Belykh on two charges of abuse of power, but the judge acquitted Belykh of the more serious of the two charges due to lack of evidence, handing him only a 2 1/2-year sentence on the lesser of the two charges. Statute of limitations deadlines also mean he won’t serve that prison term.
The 12 years requested by prosecutors would have included the time Belykh had already served, meaning the additional charges filed against Belykh in 2021 would have added about four years to his prison time.
However, Belykh’s eight-year prison term was not changed.
One of the highest-ranking officials to be arrested in office since President Vladimir Putin was first elected in 2000, Belykh maintained his innocence, saying he is the victim of a provocation by law enforcement authorities.
Once a leader of a liberal opposition party, the Union of Right Forces, Belykh was one of the few provincial governors in Russia not closely allied with Putin.
Before serving as Kirov governor, Belykh was a deputy governor of Perm Oblast and a lawmaker in the Perm Oblast Legislative Assembly.
He conducted several political campaigns in opposition to Putin’s policies and was sharply criticized by liberals, such as former ally Boris Nemtsov — who was assassinated in February 2015 — when he accepted the appointment in 2009 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev.
Putin fired Belykh in July 2016, shortly after his arrest.