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Prosecutors Clashed with Their Investigators over Detained Bureaucrat
The action against Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak, who is currently charged with attempted fraud, sparkled a big conflict between the RF Prosecutor General Office and its Investigating Committee. Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin called off investigators’ resolution to initiate the second criminal action against Storchak, this time because of the office abuse. The investigators rebuffed by claiming that Grin inked the respective resolution post factum and, therefore, himself violated the law.
The fact that Sergei Storchak is the figurant of another case, this time because of the office abuse, emerged in the Moscow City Court December 3, when lawyers of the bureaucrat appealed against his detention by Basmanny Court on November 16. When giving the reasons for Storchak’s arrest, Prosecutor Victoria Zhukova abruptly referred to one more case initiated against him.
The second case “relates to the office abuse by Mr Storchak in time of Russia’s-Kuwait negotiations for settling $1.6-billion debt of the former USSR to Kuwait that were held in 2005,” Investigating Committee’s spokesman Vladimir Markin explained later. This case was combined with the first one that related to attempted misappropriation of $43 million of budget funds when settling the debt of Algeria to Sodexim.
Of interest is that the second case against Storchak was opened November 23. That day, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin first declared that he would request the court to release his deputy under his personal guarantee.
Yesterday, Deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Grin called off the resolution of the Investigating Committee re: initiating the second case against Sergei Storchak for the absence of sufficient evidences of the crime. In return, the investigators vowed to appeal the decision. The second standoff between investigators and prosecutors is expected in January, at the end of two-month detention of Storchak.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 06, 2007
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