Navalny case goes to court
KIROV. March 26 (Interfax) - The criminal case files related to the misappropriation of assets in the Kirovles timber company, involving political activist Alexei Navalny and businessman Pyotr Ofitserov, has been referred to a court in Kirov.
"Alexei Navalny's case files arrived on Monday and they are being studied by Judge Sergei Blinov. The date of the first hearing has not been set yet," the court's secretary told Interfax on Tuesday.
During his tenure as an advisor to the Kirov regional governor, Navalny organized a deal to misappropriate assets in the Kirovles timber company after colluding with the Vyatka Timber Company's director Ofitserov and Kirovles General Director Vyacheslav Opalev, investigators claimed.
They also claimed that more than 10,000 cubic meters of timber, owned by Kirovles, was misappropriated from May to September 2009, which caused the regional budget to lose over 16 million rubles in revenue.
The problem was being conducted by the Russian Investigative Committee's Main Investigative Department. Navalny stands accused of large-scale embezzlement and Ofitserov of complicity in this crime.
