IZHEVSK, Russia -- The former governor of Russia's Udmurtia region has been convicted of bribe-taking and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The Zavyalov district court in Udmurtia on October 14 found Aleksandr Solovyov guilty of receiving some 142 million rubles (1.8 million) in bribes in exchange for giving construction companies permits to build bridges over local rivers and sentenced him the same day.
The court also fined Zavyalov 275 million rubles ($3.5 million).
Solovyov, who was appointed to the post of the governor of Udmurtia in September 2014, was arrested in April 2017 on corruption charges and was fired by President Vladimir Putin.
Some 53 percent of the 1.5 million residents of Udmurtia, a republic in Russia's Volga Federal District some 1,250 kilometers east of Moscow, are ethnic Udmurts.
The Udmurt language is of the Uralic stem that also includes Finno-Ugric languages.
