MOSCOW, November 15, 14:02 /ITAR-TASS/. Former Russian defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov heads the federal machine engineering research and testing centre of the state corporation Russian Technologies, lawyer Konstantin Revkin said.

According to Revkin, Serdyukov has informed his attorneys, him and Genrikh Padva, that he has become director-general of the centre within the Russian Technologies corporation.

The ex-minister is a witness in the highly publicized case of real estate fraud in the structures of the Oboronservice and Slavyanka companies. Materials of the separate Oboronservice case are prepared to start a trial.

Fifty-one-year-old Serdyukov headed the Defense Ministry from February 15, 2007 to November 6, 2012. He started his state service career in 2000 as deputy head of the Federal Tax Service's St. Petersburg interregional inspection. In May 2001, he was appointed deputy chief of the tax ministry's department in St. Petersburg and from November 2001 headed the department. In March 2004, he became Russian deputy tax minister and headed the Federal Tax Service from July 2004.

There is little information about the research centre on the website of Russian Technologies, only that it is located in the village of Novy Byt outside Moscow.