Jailed Former Sakhalin Governor Sentenced To 15 Years In Second Corruption Case

Former Sakhalin Governor Aleksandr Khoroshavin (file photo)

A Russian court has sentenced the former governor of the Sakhalin Oblast to 15 years in prison after convicting him on corruption charges for the second time in four years.

The Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Court sentenced Aleksandr Khoroshavin on April 28 after finding him guilty of accepting more than 100 million rubles ($1.3 million) in bribes from candidates for the municipal council during a 2014 election campaign.

The court in the regional capital also ruled that the 62-year-old former governor must pay a 500 million-ruble ($6.7 million) fine.

Khoroshavin’s co-defendant in the case, the former deputy mayor of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Aleksei Leskin, was sentenced to nine years in prison and taken into custody in the courtroom.

The same court sentenced Khoroshavin in February 2018 to 13 years in prison on charges of bribery and involvement in a money-laundering conspiracy. He was also ordered to pay a 500 million-ruble fine, barred from occupying state posts for five years following the end of his sentence, and deprived of all state awards.

At the time, two co-defendants -- former subordinates Andrei Ikramov and Sergei Karepkin -- were sentenced to 9 1/2 and eight years in prison, respectively.

The court ruled on April 28 that Khoroshavin will serve his new sentence concurrently with his previous prison term.

Khoroshavin became governor of Sakhalin, in Russia's Far East, in 2007.

He was arrested in 2015 and charged with taking some $5.6 million in bribes from a construction company in Sakhalin.

With reporting by Sakhalin.info