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Former Russian Defence Minister turns up for interrogation in Oboronservis fraud case

Last December Serdyukov refused to answer the questions of the detective over the illness of his lawyer and the interrogation was postponed at his request

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, January 11 (Itar-Tass) — Former Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov turned up for an interrogation in the Main Investigation Department of the Russian Investigation Committee in the Oboronservis military property fraud case on Friday, lawyer of the former minister Genrikh Padva told Itar-Tass.

The former minister in the car with the tinted windows passed through the gates of the Main Investigation Department, where the journalists met.

Last December Serdyukov refused to answer the questions of the detective over the illness of his lawyer and the interrogation was postponed at his request.

The Main Investigation Department has earlier opened the criminal cases over the criminal schemes with the property, which was owned by the company Oboronservis, which is subordinate to the Defence Ministry. The criminal cases are being investigated under the criminal articles for fraud and abuse of powers.

The detectives found that the officials from the Defence Ministry misused the most liquid and prestigious property sites, land plots and shares from the Oboronservis property. Then enormous budget funds were invested in this property and the property was sold at considerably understated prices to the commercial entities affiliated with Oboronservis. Meanwhile, many property sites were bought from the funds misappropriated from Oboronservis.

The damages in this criminal case are preliminarily estimated at over four billion roubles. However, a financial and economic expertise was conducted to find the exact sum of damages.

Former head of the centre of legal support Expert Yekaterina Smetanova and her husband, former general director of a warehouse in the Moscow district of the Russian Air Force Maxim Zakutailo are being kept in arrest on the fraud accusations in this criminal case. Former head of the Department of Proprietary Relations of the Russian Defence Ministry Yevgeniya Vasilyeva is being kept under home arrest.

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