On November 5, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. A boarding school accountant has been convicted of embezzlement in Polotsk district, the official representative of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus for Vitebsk region, Inna Gorbacheva, told a BELTA correspondent. A native of Novopolotsk, born in 1989, while working as an accountant at one of the boarding schools in Polotsk district, embezzled funds from the educational institution for over three years. Being an official and financially responsible person with corresponding official powers, the woman repeatedly made deliberately false entries in accounting documents regarding the increase of the total amount payable for sick leave certificates, vacation pay, and other accruals. She then submitted these statements for approval to the institution's administration, after which she received the amount indicated in the documents from the institution's account by cheque, recorded the sum in the cash register, and disposed of the surplus at her own discretion. As a result of her actions, the educational institution suffered damages exceeding Br55 million. "During the investigation, irrefutable evidence of the accused's guilt was obtained. Numerous accounting documents, a work computer with a program confirming the method of embezzlement and the accused's criminal activity were seized and studied," noted Inna Gorbacheva, adding that during the investigative actions, the woman fully admitted her guilt, repented of her actions, and returned the entire embezzled amount. The Court of Polotsk District and the City of Polotsk found the former accountant guilty of property misappropriation committed by an official using their official powers, committed on a particularly large scale, and based on Part 4 of Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, sentenced her to five years of imprisonment with confiscation of property and deprivation of the right to hold positions related to accounting, storage, and disposal of material assets for a period of two years. However, taking into account a number of mitigating circumstances, she was granted a deferral of sentence execution for a period of three years. -0-

BELTA