Russia Opens Criminal Case Against Kremlin Critic, Navalny Responds

Russia on December 29 launched a probe towards the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for ‘fraud’, alleging that his Anti-Corruption agency FBK used greater than 356 million rubles ($4.8 million) charity funds for private use, together with paying bills from a vacation abroad. Russia’s Investigative Committee, individually, additionally commenced an investigation towards the previous for defamation of a Moscow district court docket decide, in keeping with sources of Russian information company TASS. Navalny now confronted a prison case towards costs of embezzlement of 356 million rubles collected from nonprofit organizations. 

In an announcement, cited by TASS, the Investigative Committee mentioned that Navalny’s agency misused Anti-Corruption Fund that it had ‘exclusively’ raised from NGOs. It added that the Main Investigative Directorate of Russia’s Investigative Committee collected sufficient info that confirms that Navalny used the cash to buy “personal property (and) material assets and to pay expenses (including holidays abroad)”. He now has charged over indicators of ‘fraud’ of a big scale, the committee mentioned in a launch.

The Committee reportedly introduced that after a radical investigation, the de-facto chief has been discovered indulging in a mass scale financial fraud by way of his group. The funds collected from residents have been stolen, the committee alleged, including that the prison act carries a penalty of as much as 10 years in jail. However, Navalny described the prison probe towards him as “invented by Putin” and dismissed the fees towards his agency FBK as baseless.