The Court of Yekaterinburg’s Leninskiy district sentenced Transglobal Airline’s top executive Mikhail Churkanov to twenty-seven months in prison. Given that the accused has already spent twenty-six months in detention, his term will be over in May 2008.

Mikhail Churkanov was charged with large-scale fraud (Article 159 of Russian Criminal Code) after Mir Travel Company signed a contract with Transglobal in September 2005 regarding five charter flights the latter was supposed to have operated in the winter of 2005/2006. Mir’s customers were unable to leave Yekaterinburg for Salzburg on December 28, 2005, for Goa, India, on January 3, 2006, and for Bali on January 4, 2006 due to the fact that the air carrier failed to provide the aircraft. Mir’s damage was estimated at several hundred thousand dollars.