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CPRF, A Just Russia Party deputies may be stripped of immunity

Deputies intend to unite to protect their colleagues

A new scandal is unfolding around deputies of the State Duma lower house of parliament. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Communist Konstantin Shirshov and member of the “A Just Russia Party” Oleg Mikheyev must be stripped of their mandates and criminal proceedings must be launched against them. CPRF and A Just Russia party claimed the accusations were invalid. Moreover, deputies intend to unite to protect their colleagues.

Communist Konstantin Shirshov is accused of scheming to sell a Duma seat, the Moskovsky Komsomolets writes. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation stated that back in December. According to investigators, Shirshov and his accomplices - Vadim Gurzhiy, Vladimir Myasin and Leonid Karagod - received from a certain businessman 66 million roubles for putting him on the list of election candidates. Myasin and Karagod have already been convicted in this case, and their guilt is proven. As for Mikheyev, he is accused of seizing 14 items of immovable property of the Volgograd Engine Plant worth over 500 million roubles, as well as of an attempt to steal a credit of Promsvyazbank worth two billion roubles and obstruction of justice. The deputy himself denies any wrongdoing.

A source of the RBK Daily in A Just Russia Party said that as of Wednesday evening the faction had not received the document regarding Mikheyev, and it is not yet clear what the prosecutor general’s wording will be. That is why it is not yet clear what committee will consider it – the deputies’ ethics committee, the regulations committee or the committee for control over incomes. The head of the Communist Party’s legal service, Vadim Solovyev, on the contrary believes that in the case of his fellow party member, it was the political activity of Shirshov as well as Communist Party’s disagreement with the results of the election to the Duma that played the crucial role. Solovyev also supported the offer voiced earlier by A Just Russia Party leader Sergei Mironov, to combine factions’ forces to protect colleagues.

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