A Moscow district court on Wednesday placed a former member of Alexei Navalny's electoral team under house arrest on suspicion he siphoned off funds intended for the opposition leader's electoral campaign.
Municipal deputy Konstantin Yankauskas, along with two other members working for Navalny during his 2013 mayoral bid, Nikolai Lyashkin and Vladimir Ashurkov, is suspected of sluicing money from a 10-million-ruble ($291,000) online campaign fund, the Investigative Committee said in a statement released in May.
Both Lyashkin and Yankauskas are running for this year's Moscow City Duma elections for the opposition coalition For Moscow.
"House arrest is better than just arrest. But not as fun as many people think. Rays of support to Kostya and his family," Navalny wrote Wednesday on his Twitter account.
The opposition leader is no stranger to the grievances of confinement, having spent the past three months under house arrest in connection to a separate embezzlement case against him.
Under the terms of his internment, Yankauskus — a municipal deputy for the Zyukino region of Moscow — is forbidden from communicating with friends and family and has been cut off from Internet access, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday.
Yankauskus will remain in confinement until July 17, when the Investigative Committee is due to complete its investigation, the report added.
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