A ‘private investor’ reportedly supplied the two million dollars slipped to Alexey Ulyukayev before his bribery arrest

Federal Security Service General Oleg Feoktistov reportedly told the court in the Ulyukayev case that a “private investor” supplied the cash handed over to former Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev in a leather bag, which police confiscated when they arrested him in mid-November 2016. According to the Russian-language service of the BBC, Feoktistov personally asked this “investor” to help in the sting operation.

Feoktistov told the court that Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin gave the bag to Ulyukayev the moment he arrived at Rosneft’s office, before the two went up to Sechin’s office and spoke for 15-20 minutes, where Sechin recorded the conversation. In the audio tapes, Ulyukayev is presented with a gift basket “From Ivanych” (Igor Sechin’s patronymic is Ivanovych). Ulyukayev told the court that he thought the bag contained wine, not cash.

Prosecutors in the trial against Ulyukayev have asked the court to sentence him to10 years in prison for supposedly soliciting a $2-million bribe from from Igor Sechin for greenlighting Rosneft’s acquisition of a stake in the oil company Bashneft. Prosecutors say the former minister should also be stripped of his civil service rank and government awards, and fined 500 million rubles — five times the amount of the $2-million bribe.

Ulyukayev’s lawyers say their client should be acquitted on grounds that he had no legal authority to make a decision about Bashneft’s privatization and therefore was in no position to demand a bribe.