MOSCOW, December 20 (Itar-Tass) — Chairman of the Investigative Committee /SK/ Alexander Bastrykin said a financial and economic expert examination in the Oboronservis case will help determine the possible damage.
"As for the resounding Oboronservis case, we're ordering a complex financial and economic expert examination and attracting noted specialists," Bastrykin said, "we cannot just make claims that these women and /former Defense Minister/ Anatoly Serdyukov have stolen something."
"I instructed the investigators to carry out a number of expert examinations, in order to draw conclusions on law-breaking," he added, "perhaps, they will say that such was the market situation at the time; let's not forget that there is a number of disputed legal issues, such as sale of real estate at a certain price. We work though all the possible variants at conferences," Bastrykin said.
The main military investigation department /GVSU/ of the Investigative Committee /SK/ opened eight criminal cases over fraud involving more than a dozen real estate facilities that belonged to the Oboronservis company subordinate to the Defense Ministry.
They were pooled in one case and are being investigated under the articles on fraud and exceeding and abusing authority.
Defense Ministry officials selected the most liquid and prestigious assets belonging to the Ministry, including Moscow-based property. As a rule, tremendous budget funds were injected into the property before it was sold at understated prices to commercial bodies affiliated with Oboronservis, the SK reported earlier.
Also, many facilities were purchased with the money stolen from Oboronservis.
The damage within the case is estimated at over four billion roubles.
Former head of the "Expert" legal support center Yekaterina Smetanova and her husband, former director general of a Moscow Military District warehouse Maxim Zakutailo are in custody on charges of fraud.
Former director of the Defense Ministry’s property department Yevgenia Vasilyeva is under house arrest.