The Moscow City Court sentenced former State Duma deputy Vadim Belousov in absentia to 10 years in a strict regime colony and fined 500 million rubles in the case of a bribe of three billion rubles (part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code). This is reported by RIA Novosti and TASS.
Makfa and Autobahn. Why the State Duma may deprive Vadim Belousov of parliamentary immunity
Also, the former politician was deprived of the right to hold certain positions and the medal «For Services to the Fatherland» for three years. As noted in the press service of the Moscow courts, Belousov did not come to the meeting. The lawyer explained this by “[the ex-deputy's] employment and previously scheduled working meetings.”
Mother-in-law Belousov and Margarita Butakova, chief accountant of the Chelyabinsk company First Khlebokombinat, were given four years probation.
According to According to investigators, from 2010 to 2014, Belousov, together with Butakova and the ex-governor of the Chelyabinsk region, Mikhail Yurevich, received a bribe in the amount of more than three billion rubles for providing contracts for road construction. A criminal case against Belousov was opened only in 2018, after he was stripped of his immunity. Yurevich was put on the wanted list in 2017 and arrested in absentia, as he left Russia.
Belousov first became a State Duma deputy in 2011, when he was elected from United Russia. The second time he got into the lower house of parliament from the lists of «Fair Russia».