Duma's ethics chief asks to be suspended over alleged property in U.S.
MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - The head of the parliamentary ethics commission of Russia's State Duma has asked to be suspended due to allegations that he owns property in the United States.
"Due to information in the media to the effect that I own real estate in the United States, I consider it important to ask the chairman of the house to suspend me as chairman of the Duma commission on ethics pending the completion of investigations," a statement from the Duma group of the ruling United Russia party quoted Vladimir Pekhtin as saying in a letter to Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin.
"I have never had any property in the United States, nor do I have any now," Pekhtin said. "The real estate mentioned in the press belongs to my son Alexei, who went to study in the United States in 1998, before I was elected as a deputy. He has been able to work in the United States and owns property there."
Pekhtin said he had asked the Duma chairman to order the media reports that set off the scandal appear to investigated by the Duma commission that checks deputies' incomes and property declarations. "If necessary, I stand ready to provide all documents that this commission may ask for," he said.
"I reserve the right to complain to the judiciary about the dissemination of false information that undermines my reputation," Pekhtin said.
Earlier, opposition activist Alexei Navalny claimed that Pekhtin and his son own real estate in the United States.
"I have just seen that text by Navalny, and I want to say that his allegations that my son and I co-own several apartments in the U.S. are untrue. I don't own any real estate abroad," Pekhtin told Interfax on Tuesday.
He said his son is 35 years old, he began to study in the United States in 1998, and took a job there afterward, that he now has his own business in the country, and that he and his wife own several apartments there.
"My son is a grown, independent and wealthy man, and he has the right to buy whatever he wants. I don't even know properly what he owns there," Pekhtin said.
It is conceivable that in completing real estate documentation, his son completed "some boxes where one has to indicate either potential heirs or one's next-of-kin, in other words parents," Pekhtin said. "But those are my guesses. I don't know anything about those documents that's worth talking about."