Testimony did not save Vladimir Antonov from prison

Sentenced to former owner of FC Portsmouth.
Vyborg district court of St. Petersburg, despite pleading guilty and fulfilling the conditions of the pre-trial cooperation agreement, sentenced Vladimir Antonov, a former banker and former owner of the English Portsmouth football club, to two and a half years in prison. It should be noted that he is a witness on the part of the prosecution in the case of the ex-MIA officer Dmitry Zakharchenko.

The court found that in October 2015, Vladimir Antonov and the ex-head of the Sovetsky bank Stanislav Mitrushin arranged for the issuance of a knowingly non-repayable loan to OOO Service in the amount of 150 million rubles. with a rate of 18%. In a criminal case initiated by the Main Directorate of the Central Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg in November 2017, the former head of the credit department of the Sovetsky Bank, Andrey Kuznetsov, and entrepreneurs Dmitry Tolstoukhov and Tamara Chernyshova were also held. They, as established by the court, produced and submitted to “Sovetsky” a package of documents to OOO “Service”, which reflected the implementation of supposedly real financial and economic activities for granting a loan to the company. In the spring of last year, Andrey Kuznetsov and Dmitry Tolstoukhov received three years of probation with a probation period of two years, and Tamara Chernyshov — a year and a half of a general regime colony.

The case of Vladimir Antonov was considered in a special order, since in the summer of 2018 the banker pleaded guilty and concluded a pre-trial agreement on cooperation with the prosecutor's office. He testified against his accomplice, Stanislav Mitrushin. Last year, the Vyborg district court of St. Petersburg refused in absentee election of a preventive measure for Mr. Mitrushin, since he was not put on the international wanted list in this case. The joint press service of the courts of St. Petersburg "b" clarified that the investigation did not come out with a repeated request for his arrest. Now Stanislav Mitrushin has been put on the international wanted list by the Moscow police in another case - the embezzlement of 2.2 billion rubles - also connected with the Sovetsky bank. In August last year, the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region declared the credit institution bankrupt.

According to lawyer Vladimir Antonov Igor Reshetnikov, one of the points of his pre-trial agreement implied testimony against another defendant - co-owner of a large contractor of Russian Railways, the 1520 group of companies, Valery Markelov. In October last year, he was arrested on charges of giving bribes to ex-Colonel GUEBiPK MVD Dmitry Zakharchenko for general patronage. Their amount, according to investigators, was more than 2 billion rubles.

The defense called the sentence handed down to Mr Antonov - and he was taken into custody in the courtroom - “incredibly tough”.

According to Igor Reshetnikov, in the case of Vladimir Antonov, who executed the pre-trial agreement and fully repaid the damage, there were all grounds for probation.

“We not only expected a conditional sentence - it must be appointed by law,” the lawyer said. According to him, subject to the conclusion of a pre-trial agreement, Vladimir Antonov could not get more than five years of real imprisonment. In the debate, the prosecutor's office asked for the banker almost the maximum penalty - four years and 1 million rubles. fine. “Perhaps, in sentencing, the role was played by his name and the idea that this person should be punished,” suggests Igor Reshetnikov. The defense will appeal the sentence imposed on Mr. Antonov.

Vladimir Antonov has also been wanted by the Lithuanian authorities since 2011. Abroad, he is suspected of deliberately ruining the bank Snoras, assessing the theft of $ 1.5 billion. Vladimir Antonov argued that the nationalization of the bank was illegal. Now, according to the lawyer, there is no active action in this case.