Law enforcement authorities on Friday arrested a senior Russian lawmaker on accusations that he ordered the murder of his business partner.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said that Senator Dmitry Savelyev “instructed his friend to organize the murder of a businessman” in August 2023.
It said law enforcement agents staged that businessman’s murder, after which Savelyev gave money to “an accomplice,” believing he had carried out the killing.
Savelyev, who serves as a lawmaker in the upper-house Federation Council, faces up to life in prison if found guilty of ordering an assassination.
A live video feed of the Federation Council’s Friday session showed Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov appearing unannounced as Chairwoman Valentina Matvienko declared a summer recess.
The Kommersant business daily, citing anonymous sources, reported that Krasnov asked senators to strip Savelyev of his immunity shortly after entering the chamber of the Federation Council. The senator was then detained upon leaving the chamber, according to the newspaper.
Savelyev is alleged to have paid $100,000 through a middleman to a former Russian prison service employee, who turned himself in to the Federal Security Service (FSB) after initially agreeing to perform the contract killing.
Kommersant identified Savelyev’s intended victim by only his last name Ionov, who was reportedly the senator’s business partner.
Savelyev’s “personal hostility” toward Ionov emerged after the latter was claimed to have embezzled funds from their mutual company. According to Kommersant, Ionov served a prison sentence for that crime.
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