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Criminal case opened over embezzlement by firm owned by Navalny

100 million roubles were allocated by the Union of Right-Wing Forces in 2007 to Allekt, the company led by opposition activist
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, December 24 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case over a theft of funds by Allekt, the company led by opposition activist Alexei Navalny, Committee’s spokesman Vladimir Markin said on Monday.

Markin said in 2007, 100 million roubles were allocated by the Union of Right-Wing Forces to Allekt for advertising services. “The investigation has established that an agreement on advertising services was signed in April 2007 between the Union of Right-Wing Forces Party and Allekt. All in all about 100 million roubles were transferred to the account of the company in accordance with the agreement,” Markin said.

“Allekt led by Alexei Navalny, for its part, was transferring the received money to the accounts of companies most of which looked like fake companies or the so-called fly-by-night companies. Nobody has so far submitted to the investigation documents confirming that the agreement terms were fulfilled,” he added.

On Monday, the chief investigation department of the Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case on Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code (Swindle). It was opened on the basis of materials obtained during the investigation of the Kirovles case (in which Alexei Navalny and Kirovles head Petr Ofitserov are among the persons involved).

Investigators look into whether the leadership of Allekt, including Alexei Navalny, and other persons were involved, Markin added.