MOSCOW: A Moscow court has toughened an embezzlement conviction against a French banker who left the country years earlier, converting his initial suspended sentence to jail time, Russian state media reported Wednesday.
Philippe Delpal, a former senior executive at the Baring Vostok investment group, received a four-and-a-half year suspended sentence in 2021 for allegedly swindling funds from Vostochny Bank — partly owned at the time by a businessman linked to Vladimir Putin.
Delpal was sentenced alongside his business partner, US investor Michael Calvey, both of whom vehemently denied the charges.
The case shocked Russia’s business community and triggered an outflow of foreign capital from Russia.
The latest move, while likely to have little impact, comes as relations between Moscow and Paris plummet to new lows as the Kremlin shifts blame for the three-year Ukraine conflict from the United States to Europe.
Both Calvey and Delpal left Russia once the travel restrictions in their suspended sentences were lifted.
Moscow’s Tverskoy Court on Wednesday replaced Delpal’s initial suspended sentence “with a real one” following a petition from Russia’s federal prison service, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.
Delpal, who spent six months in jail before he was put under house arrest, received the suspended sentence in 2021.
Five Russian associates who said they were innocent also received suspended sentences of between three-and-a-half years to five years.
A Moscow court later reduced Delpal’s sentence from four-and-a-half years to three-and-a-half-years.