News

The supreme qualification board of judges has considered a request filed by Chairman of the RF Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin and granted him permission to open an investigation into a crime under Article 290 of the RF Penal Code over possible bribery committed by former judge of the Tambov Region Commercial Court Sergei Suchkov. Earlier the Tambov Region board of judges dismissed him for misdemeanor.

According to investigators, on 1 March 2016, the judge ruled that the time to produce a writ of execution for exacting some 8 million rubles from one construction company to another was restored. Two weeks later, during a conversation with a representative of the debtor, the judge offered him assistance in postponing the exacting for a reward of 200,000 rubles. He made a respective decision the next day after he got the consent. A week later, during a meeting with the representative of the debtor, he said that he had also issued a court order to refuse to guarantee the plaintiff’s action, and evaluated his “additional service” 100,000 rubles, which he was to receive later. Officers of the Tambov Region Office of the Federal Security Service detained the judge when he was taking the money.

Having heard the presentation of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee and having studied the files of a pre-investigative check, the supreme qualification board of judges granted their permission that criminal proceedings be initiated against the former judge.