A Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) general accused by former Economic Development Minister Aleksei Ulyukayev of helping set him up for a bribery charge has been called to testify for the prosecution at Ulyukayev's trial.
A lawyer for Ulyukayev, Daredzhan Kveidze, said after a hearing on September 1 that Oleg Feoktistov had been included on the list of prosecution witnesses.
Ulyukayev, one of the highest officials to be arrested in Russia since the Soviet era, is accused of taking a $2 million bribe in exchange for his ministry's approval for state oil giant Rosneft to acquire a majority stake in regional oil company Bashneft.
Prosecutors say he was caught red-handed, and President Vladimir Putin fired him shortly after he was detained in November. He is under house arrest.
At a hearing on August 16, Ulyukayev accused Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and Feoktistov, an FSB veteran who was Rosneft's security chief at the time, of setting him up.
He said that the handover of the cash "was planned by the FSB" and that Sechin called on him at the Rosneft offices on a pretext and "handed me the cash."
At the hearing at Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky district court on September 1, a Rosneft representative and an Economic Development Ministry official testified as witnesses.
The judge scheduled the next hearing for September 5.
