MOSCOW – Russia has opened a criminal probe into the only lawmaker who voted against Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, accusing him of embezzlement, authorities announced Tuesday.The Investigative Committee, which reports directly to President Vladimir Putin, accused MP Ilya Ponomaryov of complicity in embezzling 22 million rubles (S$535,000) from the Skolkovo Foundation, a high-tech project that the Kremlin hoped would be its answer to Silicon Valley.Investigators said the lawmaker had misappropriated fees for lectures, which only lasted “3 to 18 minutes”, receiving some US$30,000 (S$40,704) for each lecture.Ponomaryov, who remains a sitting lawmaker, currently lives in the United States. He says …read more
Source: AsiaOne
