The court upheld the sentence of Khabarovsk ex-governor Furgal

The Moscow Regional Court upheld the sentence of the former governor of the Khabarovsk Region, Sergei Furgal – 22 years in a penal colony. Furgal’s lawyers asked to challenge the court’s decision, but the appeal was not satisfied. Earlier, the governor’s sentence sparked mass protests by residents of the Far East. They believe that the ex-governor was slandered.

As “Interfax” reports, the lawyers and defendants insisted on the illegality of the sentence, pointing to procedural violations committed, according to the defense, by the judge presiding over the case, as well as to the fact that the jury, which delivered the verdict, were under pressure. The defense asked the appellate court to overturn the verdict and send the case to the court of first instance for a new trial.

In July 2020, the ex-governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, Sergei Furgal, was arrested together with his former business partner Mykola Mystryukov on charges of attempted murder of businessman Alexander Smolsky and the murders of businessmen Evgeny Zora and Oleg Bulatov in 2004-2005. The former official did not admit his guilt.

He considers the victory of the candidate from United Russia in the 2018 gubernatorial elections as one of the reasons for the persecution. According to the publication Meduza, the case against Furgal is almost entirely based on the testimony of one witness – ex-employee of the criminal investigation Vladimir Pershin. However, the judge of the Lyubertsy Court of the Moscow Region, Gennady Tsoi, sentenced Furgal to 22 years of strict regime.

• Since October 2021, Furgal is also accused of fraud and the organization of a criminal community. According to the investigation, after taking the post of head of the region, Furgal retained shadow control over the Torex group of enterprises, which he headed before entering politics. The companies that were part of “Torex” received about 2.5 billion rubles from “MSP-Bank”, which were then stolen.
• Mass actions in support of Sergei Furgal took place in Khabarovsk in 2020 and 2021. The participants of the rallies, which took to the streets in other cities of Russia, demanded consideration of the Furgal case in Khabarovsk, and also called for the resignation of the current regional and federal authorities. Later, many activists were persecuted: fined and arrested.