Reports said on Monday the Investigative Committee would not open a criminal case against former Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and former head of the Defense Ministry's education department Yekaterina Prieyzzheva. However, military prosecutors are set to prove that their claims against Serdyukov are justified.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta reminds about the procurement of furniture for the Krasnodar presidential cadet school. The scheme was quite trivial: the officials would resort to any lie or fraud for the sake of the interests of the business people they favor. A firm complained to law-enforcement bodies that it had won a tender for furniture procurement after much litigation and intervention on its behalf by the anti-monopoly service. Yet the Defense Ministry never signed a contract with it. While the winning businessmen were camping on the doorstep of the Defense Ministry, their rivals were delivering furniture to the cadet school at the order by head of the Defense Ministry’s education department Yekaterina Priyezzheva. The rival firm which supplied the furniture in circumvention of all tenders and its their winners was a well-known acquaintance of Priyezzheva. Eventually, she was paid 60 million roubles more than the tender winner would have been paid. There were several similar deliveries.
However, the Investigative Committee did not see any crime in it, the Komsomolskaya Pravda writes. It has not even voiced its arguments, which makes millions of ordinary citizens suspicious of "the strange game the investigators are playing." Rumours have already emerged that somebody ordered to "backpedal" the case, the newspaper claims. In the meantime, military prosecutors are set to prove that their claims against Serdyukov and Priyezzheva are justified.