Kremlin Notes Jailed Investor Freed Before Putin Trip to France
Kremlin Notes Jailed Investor Freed Before Putin Trip to France
(Bloomberg) -- The Kremlin highlighted a Moscow court’s decision to move French businessman Philippe Delpal from prison to house arrest days before President Vladimir Putin visits France for talks with Emmanuel Macron.
The French president repeatedly spoke to Putin about the case, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters Friday, a day after the court ordered Delpal transferred to house arrest after six months in pre-trial detention. “Here, just before the visit, was the decision of the court,” Ushakov said.
While he didn’t directly link the court’s action to Macron’s lobbying of Putin, Ushakov’s comments appeared to add weight to complaints from Russia’s critics that its court system is open to political influence. The court took the decision and there was no interference, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later. Putin is due to visit Macron at his summer residence on France’s Cote d’Azur on Monday and the case is likely to feature in their discussions.
Delpal is a partner at Baring Vostok Capital Partners who was detained on fraud charges in February along with the private-equity firm’s American founder, Michael Calvey, and other executives. They deny wrongdoing and say the charges stem from a business dispute with local investors in a case that’s shocked Russia’s investment community.
While Calvey was released into house arrest in April after a vocal campaign of support from Russian officials and business leaders, Delpal’s pre-trial detention was repeatedly extended. A court in July ordered him kept in prison until October, even after his family spent 25 million rubles ($377,000) to buy a Moscow apartment, following comments from Putin that Delpal didn’t own a home in which he could be placed under house arrest.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Michael Winfrey
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.