Orenburg Court Refuses to Release Village Head from Custody

The Orenburg Regional Court reviewed the materials concerning the chosen preventive measure for Nabiy Osmanov, head of Nezhinsky Village Council. His lawyer appealed the official«s detention.

As reported by 56.RU, since the beginning of November last year, Osmanov had been under house arrest due to charges of embezzlement or misappropriation using his official position, and on a large scale (Part 3 of Article 160 of the Russian Criminal Code), but on January 16, the Orenburg District Court changed his preventive measure to a stricter one.

— Signs of violations of the prohibitions and restrictions provided for by house arrest have been identified. In particular, the accused is pressuring witnesses and forcing them to give knowingly false testimony, trying in this way to avoid criminal liability, — the prosecutor«s office press service reported.

The prosecution side repeated the same today. Osmanov«s lawyer requested to change the official»s preventive measure to a softer one, but the Orenburg Regional Court left him in pretrial detention.

And that«s not all: besides the fact that the regional court yesterday did not release from pretrial detention a 21-year-old resident of Buzuluk accused of brutally murdering a one-and-a-half-year-old child, the region»s main court did not satisfy the appellate complaint of the lawyer for high-ranking police officer from the anti-corruption department Shafkhat Shamshayev — he also remains in custody.