Natalya Gulevich could not pay a bond of 100 million rubles for her release

On 7 November 2011 the Moscow City Court ordered that the detention of Natalya Gulevich be extended until 2 December 2011, since she could not pay a bond of 100 million rubles (approximately 3,400,000 USD) by 7 November 2011, reports Izvestia.

Natalya Gulevish was charged with fraud for alleged failure to pay back the loan to Nomos-Bank that she took acting as a director of her company. She was arrested and has been held in police custody for almost a year, though Russian law prohibits the arrest of suspects charged with economic crimes. Because of the poor conditions of her detention, Gulevich suffered several serious chronic illnesses that require urgent treatment in a specialized hospital. However, Russian courts keep extending Gulevich’s detention in custody. For more information about Gulevich case see my previous post.

After several unsuccessful domestic proceedings regarding her detention, Gulevich’s attorneys lodged an application with the ECHR, which ordered Russia to release Gulevich immediately due to her poor health conditions. As a result of the ECHR order, on 2 November 2011 the Moscow City Court decided to release Gulevich from police custody upon the payment of a bond of 100 million rubles by 7 November. Practically Gulevich had only one day to fulfill this condition, since November 4th was a public holiday and November 5th and 6th was a weekend. Since she could not gather and pay this amount, which was practically unrealistic to do within one working day, the domestic court cancelled its order on her release and extended her detention until 2 December 2011.

Russian human rights activists are afraid that Natalya Gulevich may repeat the fate of Sergey Magnitsky and Vera Trifonova, that were also charged with economic crimes and eventually died in police custody due to serious illnesses and lack of medical assistance in detention. According to Izvestia, the human rights activists also insist that the court must release Gulevich without imposing any payment obligations on her.