The son of the ex-governor of the Irkutsk region Andrei Levchenko, convicted in the case of fraud, was released on parole

The son of the ex-governor of the Irkutsk region Andrei Levchenko, convicted in the case of fraud, was released on parole



Today Andrey Levchenko, the son of the ex-governor of the Irkutsk region, who was convicted in July last year in a case of fraud and restriction of competition, left the penal colony near Angarsk. Earlier, the Angarsk City Court granted his request for parole. On May 17, after the decision on parole, Mr. Levchenko lost his mandate as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk region, where he headed the Communist Party faction. The communist will spend the next day in Moscow at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, but his ability to return to big politics will be significantly limited due to a criminal record and a ban on holding certain positions.

Andrey Levchenko was detained in September 2020 in a criminal case of embezzlement of funds from the Capital Repair Fund for apartment buildings in the Irkutsk Region. He and other defendants in the case were charged with fraud and restriction of competition in the supply of elevator equipment for apartment buildings to the region and the execution of contracts for the replacement of elevators. In July 2022 Kirovsky District Court of Irkutsk sentenced Levchenko to nine years in prison, but in March 2023, the Irkutsk Regional Court, at the request of the state prosecution lowered a sentence of up to six years.

At the gates of IK-14, where Andrei Levchenko was serving his sentence, he was met by about three dozen people - close relatives, friends, members of the regional committee of the Communist Party, including deputies of the regional legislature.

In a short comment distributed by his supporters, Mr. Levchenko thanked everyone who came to support him and said that on the morning of May 27 he would fly to Moscow to participate in the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

He plans to return to the region the next day and on May 29 he is ready to “discuss plans for the future” with members of the regional committee and the Angarsk city committee of the party, of which he is the secretary. A Kommersant source close to the Levchenko family says that next week in Irkutsk "his press conference is tentatively scheduled, during which exhaustive comments will be given."

On the release of Andrei Levchenko became known May 10, when the Angarsk City Court granted his request for parole. The next 15 days were allotted for a possible appeal of this decision by the regional prosecutor's office, which never followed.

On May 17, the Irkutsk Legislative Assembly, of which Mr. Levchenko formally remained a deputy, even while in prison, voted to deprive him of his deputy powers. As a source in the Legislative Assembly explained to Kommersant, the fact that the deprivation of the mandate occurred after the court's decision on parole is explained by purely procedural issues. It is possible to deprive a deputy of his powers only after the guilty verdict comes into force, and as soon as the relevant information regarding Andriy Levchenko appeared in the Pravosudie GAS, the parliament began to prepare the issue for submission to the next session, the interlocutor said. According to him, no one deliberately postponed the decision and the deprivation of the mandate "should have taken place before the beginning of June, regardless of whether there was parole or not."

It is noteworthy that only seven deputies of the Legislative Assembly voted against the deprivation of Mr. Levchenko's mandate (three more abstained and two did not vote), although the Communist Party faction consists of 18 people, 14 of whom were present at the session. A Kommersant source familiar with the situation connects this with the way Andrei Levchenko led the faction during the governorship of his father Sergei Levchenko. “For example, when the law on school meals was being developed, the communist faction was forced to vote against, since the initiative was developed by United Russia. This caused discontent within the faction, as it potentially affected the reputation of the deputies. And the situation gradually led to a split in the faction,” the interlocutor says.

It is worth noting that in the near future Andrey Levchenko's opportunities for a full-fledged return to big-time politics will be significantly limited.

Composition of Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, under which he was convicted, belongs to the category of serious, and according to the electoral legislation, citizens with an outstanding conviction for serious crimes cannot take part in elections, and this ban will remain for ten years after the removal or expiration of the conviction. In addition, at the end of the parole period (after 2 years and 2 months), an additional punishment will come into force - a ban on holding civil service positions related to the exercise of organizational, administrative and administrative powers for a period of 2 years 11 months.

Vlad Nikiforov, Anton Eroshenko, Irkutsk



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