Former Russian general found dead at prison hospital

Mikhail Maksimenko, former Major General of Justice who headed an internal security department of the Investigative Committee of Russia, was found dead in a prison in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia.

He was serving a 14-year sentence for corruption. The body of the 50-year-old man was found on Tuesday, November 21, in a psychiatric hospital. It was said that the ex-general was undergoing treatment there after he tried to commit suicide.

The man's body was found in a storage room. Allegedly, Maksimenko killed himself.

Before being transferred to a Nizhny Novgorod colony, the former head of the ICR Internal Security Service was kept alone for about six years in a shabby cell of the Moscow Lefortovo pre-trial detention centre.

Maksimenko was convicted in a high-profile corruption case

In 2018, a court found that Maksimenko, together with General Alexander Drymanov, the former chief of the Moscow Headquarters of the Investigative Committee and a number of other high-ranking employees, received one million dollars from Russia's No.1 crime lord Zakhary Kalashov (Shakro Molodoy).

The amount was paid for the release of criminal boss Andrei Kochuykov (Italianets). The latter was arrested for a shootout near a Moscow restaurant on Rochdelskaya Street in December 2015. It ended in a double murder and a high-profile criminal trial.

Investigators said that Mikhail Maksimenko was the leader of the criminal group. He was sentenced to 14 years in a maximum security colony and a fine of 165 million rubles. The former general did not admit his guilt.

One of the defendants in the case, former head of the ICR department for the Central Administrative District of Moscow, ex-Colonel Alexey Kramarenko, was pardoned and released from serving a ten-year sentence for taking part in the special military operation in Ukraine. The ex-officer, who worked for 22 years in the prosecutor's office and investigative system, intends to regain his rank. Kramarenko has already spent five months on the front line as a soldier. In November of this year he led an assault unit.