MOSCOW, December 13 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s Investigative Committee (SK) will direct an inquiry to Georgia within the framework of the investigation into the alleged financing by Givi Targamadze (head of the Georgian Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Security) of the Russian opposition, SK spokesman Vladimir Markin said on Thursday.
“With regard to recent media reports about Targamadze’s contacts with the Russian opposition leaders it is necessary to clarify that the Investigation Committee is not interested in their premature publication and did not initiate their publication,” Markin said. “But once such materials have appeared in the media, the SK may only confirm the fact of their existence, as well as many other materials that are now attached to the criminal case, they are being studied and the needed expert examinations are conducted on them.”
According to him, the refusal of one of the defendants in the criminal case over the preparation for the organisation of mass riots in Russia (opened after the “Anatomy of a Protest-2” film was shown), Leonid Razvozzhayev, to acknowledge his guilt “is not essential to the investigation, as it has other data and evidence of the case.”
“These materials contain evidence confirming not only the financing of the Russian opposition by Givi Targamadze, but also his specific role in the organisation of mass riots in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, as well as his direct management of actions of the opposition leaders during the March of Millions in Moscow. In this connection the Investigative Committee has prepared a request for legal assistance, which will soon be sent through the RF Prosecutor General’s Office to the competent authorities of Georgia,” said Vladimir Markin.
Earlier, the SK said that during the investigation of the criminal case against the Left Front coordinator Sergei Udaltsov, his assistant Konstantin Lebedev, assistant to a State Duma member Leonid Razvozzhayev and others over the preparation of mass riots “materials confirming the financing by Targamadze of illegal activities of Udaltsov , Razvozzhayev and Lebedev aimed at organising mass unrest in Russia were collected.”
In particular, according to the SK, “it was established that in spring 2012 the trips of Russian citizens from different regions to the Republic of Lithuania were organised. They travelled there to take part in a seminar on the seizure of power by the example of the “colour revolutions” that occurred earlier in other countries. The criminal case materials confirm that such seminars were attended by Muscovites Taisiya ··Alexandrova, Anna Kornilova and Yuri Nabutovsky.” On December 11, searches were conducted in their apartments. “Electronic information media, which contain the literature for the overthrow of the incumbent authorities, as well as other objects and documents, which are important for the criminal case, were confiscated in the searches. The people, at the residence places of whom the searches were made, were brought in the Investigation Committee for interrogations as witnesses,” Vladimir Markin said earlier.
Within the criminal case Udaltsov gave an undertaking not to leave, and Lebedev and Razvozzhayev were arrested. Charges have been bought against all the three who may face up to five years in prison.