OREANDA-NEWS  A military court has sentenced Alexander Berezhny, a former official of the Russian Defense Ministry, and other defendants in a criminal case involving a bribe of 386 million rubles and abuse of office, Alexander Ilyin, a lawyer for one of the defendants, told RIA Novosti.

"Today, the 235th garrison military court handed down a verdict that sentenced my client, Yuri Reshetnikov, to 10 years in prison, and Alexander Berezhny to seven years and seven months in prison," the agency's source said.

The court sentenced two other defendants, Alexander Vakulin and Alexey Grinyuk, to 9.5 and 10 years in prison, respectively.

In total, four defendants were sentenced: Alexander Berezhnoy, former head of the Food Department of the Ministry of Defense, Alexey Grinyuk, former expert of the food department, Yuri Reshetnikov, former head of the Department of competitive procedures for state procurement of the Department of Public Procurement, and Alexander Vakulin, former head of the Department of technical support of the food Department.

The lawyer added that the court also satisfied the claim for 639 million rubles, which it decided to recover from the defendants in solidarity, including those previously convicted Alexei Kalitin, Alexei Pozhidaev and Alexander Boruvkov.

The court found that the defendants received a bribe through an intermediary in the amount of 386 million rubles, and also caused damage to the state in the person of the Russian Ministry of Defense in the amount of 639 million rubles due to abuse of official authority. From February 2014 to April 2017, an organized group created by Berezhny and Grinyuk undertook, in the interests of the bribe-giver Kalitin, to provide patronage to his companies in order to win auctions.

Berezhnoy partially admitted his guilt in the alleged crimes, while the other defendants did not.