Russia's main domestic security service, the FSB, said earlier that Vagan Kasyan and another Interior Ministry official were caught red-handed trying to extort the sum from a computer retailer to drop a probe against one of its executives and lift an arrest from its warehouse.
"Kasyan planned to receive the bribe for not bringing an executive of a commercial organization to justice and lifting an arrest from its warehouses," Anna Usacheva said.
The court thereby rejected an appeal lodged by Kasyan's defense team. The suspect could face up to 12 years in prison for the attempted extortion of "an especially large sum of money." A district court sanctioned his arrest August 7.
The Vedomosti daily reported earlier that Ultra Online Trading Technologies was itself guilty of trading in confiscated and stolen computers and software.
