A Russian court has actually sentenced Sergei Furgal, the former guv of the Khabarovsk area whose arrest triggered mass demonstrations, to 22 years in a maximum-security jail for double murder, media reported Friday.Judge Gennady Tsoi of the Moscow regions Lyubertsy District Court handed the decision after a jury discovered Furgal guilty of the charges, according to the Vedomosti service daily.
3 other accuseds received jail sentences ranging from 9.5 years to 21 years.Furgal, 52, was detained and charged with numerous criminal offenses in 2020, simply 2 years into his term as governor of Khabarovsk, a flourishing region on the Pacific Ocean.
He denies all charges versus him.Prosecutors had actually asked for a 23-year jail sentence for the popular ex-governor, who won the gubernatorial seat over a prospect from the judgment United Russia party in 2018.
In spite of the charges versus Furgal being widely seen as politically motivated, the jury last week agreed to hold Furgal accountable for the double murder in the early 2000s of business person Yevgeny Zori and previous law enforcement officers Oleg Bulatov, the tried murder of entrepreneur Alexander Smolsky, and for running a criminal gang involved in cash laundering.
His initial arrest and elimination from workplace triggered an extraordinary wave of discontent in Khabarovsk that lasted for over a year.
Following the jurys guilty verdict recently, a small group of Furgals supporters came out to object the decision on Khabarovsks Lenin Square.
You not only took away [Furgals] flexibility, but likewise that of the entire Khabarovsk region, one protester stated in a video posted by independent media outlet Activatica.
Furgal, too, rejected all charges versus him in court.
If you condemn us, the innocent, it will be a great sin because those actually guilty will stroll totally free, breathing the fresh air [and] smiling, Furgal said in his closing statement to the jury last week.
Im not a fantastic believer in Christianity, however [I do believe] we need to be acquitted so that it is we who have the ability to breathe the fresh air, he included.