A former senior city official will be released from pretrial detention after a senior City Duma member volunteered as his guarantor, a rarely invoked basis for freeing suspects from custody, investigators said Friday.
Former Moscow Advertising Committee head Vladimir Makarov, who has been in jail since August while awaiting trial on corruption charges, will be released after City Duma Speaker Vladimir Platonov vouched for him, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Platonov filed a request with investigators for Makarov's release on Jan. 13, the committee said.
Makarov was arrested on suspicion of improperly offering more than $4 million in discounts to private companies. Investigators alleged that the deals cost the city at least 131 million rubles ($4.3 million). If convicted of abusing his post, Makarov faces up to 10 years in prison.
While rare, cases of suspects being released at the request of personal guarantors is not unheard of. In October, investigators released Andrei Lomakin, co-owner of the Burevestnik yachting club, from pretrial detention on charges of smuggling yachts. Lomakin's release was granted at the request of "a lot of respected people" who stepped in as guarantors, his lawyer said.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin volunteered several times as a guarantor in requesting the release of his former deputy, Sergei Storchak, who was charged with embezzlement in November 2007. Storchak was released a year later after giving a written pledge not to leave the city.
Human rights activists, as well as senior federal officials and lawmakers, have called for a moratorium on pretrial jailing of white-collar criminals, saying the practice is fraught with abuses and is hampering the investment climate in the country.