The Prosecutor's Office has charged Alexander Tugushev and three other defendants with receiving a $3.7 million bribe from the management of a fishing company based in the Pacific port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky for issuing illegal fishing quotas.
The court also upheld the decision to keep four defendants behind bars and left unchanged the status of Sergei Alexandrov, the co-owner of the company in the center of the scandal, as a complainant.
The defense stated earlier that Alexandrov could not be considered a complainant, but should be questioned as a witness. "Alexandrov reported the attempted bribe after the investigation against Tugushev and other defendants had started," the defense said.
However, the judge said the issue was not in court's competence, therefore, it could not deprive Alexandrov of its status as person affected.
The four defendants were arrested on August 26, 2005 and have been held in custody ever since.
In a separate corruption case involving the committee's officials, a Moscow court convicted deputy head Yury Moskaltsov in April 2004 of fraud and abuse of office and initially sentenced him to four years in prison.
According to investigation, Moskaltsov and his accomplices organized a crab-poaching scheme under the pretence of studying bio resources in remote regions. Moskaltsov personally received more than 75 million rubles ($2.67 million) in bribes.
However, the Supreme Court reduced the lower court's ruling in August 2004 to a three-year conditional sentence.
