Over 6,000 people were convicted for corruption in Russia in 2012 – newspaper

(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 19, 2013) The judicial department of the Russian Supreme Court has published statistics of punishments for corruption in 2012, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported on Wednesday.

“A total of 6,014 people were convicted for corruption in 2012,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported.

According to the paper, some one-third of these people were convicted for giving bribes. “It is equally illegal to give and receive a bribe, and therefore people convicted for offering bribes are also guilty of corruption,” the paper reported.

“Seventy-six people were convicted for taking bribes in an amount of over 1 million rubles last year. A total of 926 people were punished for bribes worth less than 500 rubles,” the paper reported.

The majority of these people were sentenced to punishment that did not involve imprisonment and only one out of every 12 people convicted for corruption were given prison sentences. “A total of 506 people were sentenced to prison terms for corruption in 2012,” the paper reported.

One out of five such people received less than one year in prison and have already walked free or are about to walk free. The longest sentences (from eight to ten years) were given to eight convicts, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported.

According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the most frequent punishment for bribery is a fine. However, people convicted for corruption often cannot afford to pay the fines they are given ,the paper reported.

According to the Russian Supreme Court, 50% of the people convicted for corruption in Russia in 2012 asked for their fines to be replaced with a prison term because they had no money to pay them.