Accomplices of Safarbiy Napso convicted in Sochi

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A Sochi court sentenced former employees of the Dagomys Road Repair and Construction Department, who are accomplices of the former director of the company, Safarbiya Napso, to prison terms ranging from two to six and a half years. They were found guilty of fraud and abuse of power.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," last October a Sochi court sentenced the former director of the Dagomys Road Repair and Construction Department, Safarbiya Napso, to four years in prison, finding him guilty of embezzling the company's property. According to investigators, Napso acted with accomplices, but his case was separated into separate proceedings because he entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement. The convicted man is the cousin of former Russian State Duma deputy Yuri Napso.

The Lazarevsky District Court of Sochi sentenced former employees of the Dagomys Road Repair and Construction Department for fraud and abuse of office, Kommersant reported on May 16.

The court found that Pavel Gorodnichenko, Andrey Melnikov, Dmitry Beketov, Ivan Pobedenny, Sergey Sergeev, and Azamat Khartu were part of an organized group along with the former director of the company, Safarbiy Napso. From 2018 to 2012, they stole more than 45 million rubles worth of the company's property through legal entities and individuals under their control. Specifically, they transferred an asphalt concrete plant belonging to DRSU to an affiliated company at an inflated price—an enterprise valued at 81.6 million rubles was offered for less than one million rubles, Interfax reports.

The court also found that in 2019-2020, the defendants received more than four million rubles using fictitious documents for the delivery of goods, and in 2020-2021, they arranged for the issuance of false certificates of work costs, which were used to deposit funds into the company's accounts under contracts that were not actually fulfilled. Thus, they embezzled more than 79 million rubles.

The court found all defendants guilty and sentenced them to terms ranging from two to six and a half years in prison. Pavel Gorodnichenko received the longest sentence.

As a reminder, at the end of May last year, the court upheld the decision of the State Duma deputies who voted to early strip Yuri Napso of his parliamentary powers. His representative claimed that Napso was stripped of his mandate due to an incorrect calculation of his absences from work. On October 8, it was announced that the Central District Court of Sochi upheld the prosecutor's office's claim and seized in favor of the state approximately 60 properties, which, according to the court, belong to Yuri Napso or his relatives. This decision has been appealed to a higher court, Napso's lawyer said.