Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky was deported from Cambodia to Russia on Sunday to face embezzlement charges after evading Russian law enforcement officials for nearly two years. A passenger plane carrying Polonsky landed at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Sunday evening and Russia's TASS news agency said the businessman was taken away by law enforcement officials straight from the tarmac.
"The staff of the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry deported Mr. Polonsky to the territory of the Russian Federation and he will be prosecuted in accordance to Russian law," said the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry's spokeswoman, Elena Alekseyeva.
The move came a year after Cambodia's top court ruled against extradition of Polonsky, whom Russia arrested in absentia in mid-2013 over fraud charges related to a Moscow real estate development project.
Charges against Polonsky, who was once worth $1.2 billion, are related to a property business he founded, which is accused of stealing more than 5.7 billion roubles ($115.3 million) of prepayments for flats in a residential housing complex it was building.
Slavik Brsoyan, a Russian defence lawyer for Polonsky, said the defence team in Russia and Cambodia had not been officially informed of the deportation and a Russian lawyer who travelled to Cambodia after Polonsky had been arrested there on Friday was detained by local authorities.
He criticised the deportation and said that Polonsky was not guilty of the charges but could face a maximum of 10 years in jail if convicted.
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