Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee has formally declined to probe allegations by Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is the mastermind of a multibillion-dollar real-estate scheme.
Investigators told the news agency Interfax on Friday that they have no reason to open a case against the prime minister.
Last month, Communist State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin appealed to the Investigative Committee, requesting an inquiry into the accusations against Medvedev. The Anti-Corruption Foundation filed a similar request.
Earlier this month, the State Duma voted down a proposal to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the allegations against Dmitry Medvedev, after Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin (Vladimir Putin's former chief of staff) discouraged lawmakers from supporting the measure.
On March 2, Navalny’s investigative team published a report claiming that Prime Minister Medvedev exploits a vast network of mansions and yachts owned by old classmates. The Anti-Corruption Foundation says this property was donated to nonprofit groups owned by Medvedev’s friends as bribes to the prime minister.
The Kremlin has refused to study the allegations against Medvedev, and the prime minister himself has called Navalny’s report “absolute lies produced by a political con man.”
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