Mikhail Savva sentenced to three years in colony-settlement

The court in Krasnodar has replaced the conditional imprisonment imposed on Professor Mikhail Savva, who is now on the federal wanted list, by three years in a colony-settlement for violating the regime of serving his conditional punishment.

On April 2, 2014, Professor Mikhail Savva from the Kuban State University and Director of Grant Programmes of the Southern Regional Resource Centre was sentenced to three years of conditional imprisonment. Professor Savva was accused of embezzling the budget funds allocated as a grant by the administration of the Krasnodar Territory, as well as of receiving payment for fictitious lectures at the university. He completely denied his guilt. The verdict was appealed against, but on September 30, 2014, the Territorial Court upheld it.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on February 16, the criminal executive inspectorate of Krasnodar went to court demanding to place Mikhail Savva into a colony, because he had violated the above regime and went abroad. On February 19, Professor Savva confirmed his departure from Russia, arguing that he took the decision out of fear of further prosecution. On February 20, it was announced that Mikhail Savva was put on the federal wanted list.

The Sovietsky District Court of Krasnodar has toughened Mikhail Savva's punishment by replacing his conditional imprisonment by a real deprivation of freedom, the "Yugopolis" wrote on March 3.

"The District Court, having considered the petition of the Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service, has replaced the Savva's conditional sentence by a real one," the News Agency "News-RAPSI" quotes an official representative of the Prosecutor's Office of the Krasnodar Territory.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.