A judge sends the case against two former Rusnano officials back to the investigators

Moscow’s Cheremushkinsky District Court has sent a criminal case against two former officials at Rusnano back to police for further investigation. The corporation's former director and former financial director, Leonid Melamed and Svyatoslav Ponurov, are charged with embezzling 220 million rubles ($3.7 million).

Lawyers for Rusnano welcomed the court’s decision, having argued at the beginning of the proceedings that the case’s “gross violations and contradictions” hindered a fair trial. Melamed remains under house arrest.

Police say Melamed hired Ponurov to fix it so a company he owned won a consulting contract with Rusnano. Between February and July 2009, Melamed’s company collected 220 million rubles from Rusnano, but investigators say it never completed the contracted work and violated the terms of several investment projects.

Anatoly Chubais, the head of Rusnano, has repeatedly defended Melamed as one of the country’s best investment experts. Earlier in the trial, he testified that Rusnano’s 220-million-ruble contract with Melamed’s company saved Rusnano at least 10 billion rubles ($168.6 million). “I think that’s pretty good,” Chubais told the court, insisting that Rusnano suffered no losses in the process that awarded the contract to Melamed’s company.