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Russian Communists plan to insist on parliamentary probe into ex-defense minister case

The Communists have already tried to launch that parliamentary investigation twice

Russia's ex-defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Japaridze

Russia's ex-defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov

© ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Japaridze

MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. The faction of the Communist Party in the Russian parliament will insist that deputies consider launching a parliamentary probe into the activity of Anatoly Serdyukov when he was Russia’s defense minister, a senior lower house deputy said Wednesday.

Deputy chairman of State Duma committee on constitutional legislation and state construction Vadim Solovyov from the Communist Party said that after Moscow’s Presnensky Court on Wednesday ruled that former head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s property relations department Yevgeniya Vasilyeva was guilty of embezzling 3 billion rubles ($60 million) as part of a high-profile case involving the ministry-affiliated company Oboronservis.

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The Communists have twice tried to launch that parliamentary investigation. In February 2014, the State Duma did not agree to hold it saying criminal investigation was being conducted against Serdyukov.

Later the Communists submitted the initiative on the parliamentary probe regarding the activity of the ex-minister again, but on January 14, 2015 the State Duma committee on constitutional legislation and state construction recommended rejecting it and did not put it to the plenary session although it was in line with the regulations.

Solovyov stressed that after the May holidays he will speak at a plenary meeting and will demand that the committee observe the regulations.

Serdyukov was officially charged with negligence in December 2013. He pleaded not guilty. The former minister was pardoned in 2014, and the criminal case against him was closed. Earlier the prosecutor’s office reached the conclusion that Vasilyeva was misleading Serdyukov.

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