 Source: HRO.org (info) Marina Dubrovina, the lawyer acting for Mikhail Savva, a professor at Kuban University and director of grant programmes at the Southern Regional Resource Centre, convicted on false charges of fraud, has lodged an appeal against the judgment at Krasnodar regional court, Kasparov.ru reported on 12 April, citing RAPSI. "We shall lodge two appeals. One I have already submitted today. The other will be submitted by Mikhail Valentinovich on Monday. “The number of violations is so great that we decided to divide them into two groups. In the appeals we are asking just one thing: to acquit the defendant. I think it is justified to send the case back for a new trial,” the lawyer Marina Dubrovina said. Pervomaisky district courtin Krasnodar found Savva guilty on two counts of fraud and sentenced him to a suspended three-year prison term, with a probationary period of two years and a fine of 70,000 roubles. The court ruled that it had been proved that the Professor Savva was complicit in the theft of budgetary funds (approximately 360,000 roubles) from the regional government that had been provided as a grant. The second episode concerned Mikhail Savva’s work in the university: according to the investigators discovered, he received a fee of 72,000 roubles for a course of lectures that he had not given. Earlier a number of human rights groups declared that Mikhail Savva was a political prisoner. |
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