The prosecution has requested long sentences for three former Volgograd City Duma deputies

A representative of the prosecutor's office requested 16 to 17 years in a maximum security prison for former Volgograd City Duma deputies Evgeny Shchur, Fedor Litvinenko, and Alexey Zverev, accused of organizing a criminal community and fraud with fictitious traffic accidents.

As reported by "Kavkazsky Uzel", on December 12, 2016, a case of fraud with fictitious traffic accidents was opened against Volgograd City Duma deputies Evgeny Shchur, Fedor Litvinenko, and their former colleague Alexey Zverev. On March 2, the investigation reported that the investigation of the case was completed, and the damage from the fraud amounted to 84 million rubles. As a preventive measure, Evgeny Shchur and Fedor Litvinenko were ordered to prohibit certain actions; Alexey Zverev was under a written undertaking not to leave the city for some time, but in May 2021 it was replaced with a mandatory report to the police.

In the trial of three former deputies of the Volgograd City Duma, which has been heard in court since the spring of 2021, the parties began their closing arguments today. The prosecutor's office is demanding that those accused of organizing a criminal organization be sentenced to long prison terms.

In her speech, the representative of the state prosecution asked the court to sentence Yevgeny Shchur and Aleksey Zverev to 17 years in a strict regime penal colony, and Fedor Litvinenko to 16 years. As an additional punishment for Shchur and Zverev, she also requested fines of 2 million rubles, and for Litvinenko - 1.5 million rubles, the news agency "Height 102" reports.

Two more people, Maksim Kalashnikov and Natalya Volodina, have been charged with participating in a criminal organization. For them, the representative of the prosecutor's office requested 10 and 9 years in a general regime penal colony, respectively. None of the defendants admitted their guilt.

Aleksey Zverev is the only one of the defendants who is currently in custody. Shchur and Litvinenko remain under a ban on certain activities, Kalashnikov and Volodina - under a written undertaking not to leave. Earlier, the court seized the defendants' property in the amount of over 55 million rubles.

In addition to organizing a criminal community, the former deputies are charged with especially large-scale fraud, including with insurance, money laundering, forgery of documents and falsification of evidence in a civil case. The case contains almost two thousand volumes, of which 94 volumes constitute the indictment.

"Kavkazsky Uzel" also wrote that in May 2021, former investigator Dmitry Nikolaev was detained in Volgograd on suspicion of receiving two large bribes . At the end of 2020, a video recording appeared in which Nikolaev admitted that, on the instructions of his boss, General Mikhail Muzraev, he fabricated cases and beat out testimony. Nikolaev, in particular, stated that he allegedly falsified the materials of the criminal case against Shchur, Zverev and Litvinenko. Later, Dmitry Nikolaev refuted his words and resigned from the investigative bodies.

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