Union of Right Forces had not grievances to Navalny - Gozman
MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) - Leonid Gozman, Russian politician and former leading member of the Union of Right Forces party, has denied the suspected fact of misappropriation of party funds by opposition activist Alexei Navalny.
"If something had been wrong, I would have definitely known that. I was deputy chairman of the federal political council [of the party] at that time. This is some kind of new provocation. Absolute nonsense," he said to Interfax on Monday.
"Nobody had any claims to make to Alexei at that time," he said.
Earlier on Monday spokesman for the Investigative Committee of Russia Vladimir Markin told Interfax that criminal proceedings had been launched into the theft by Allekt company which used to be owned by Navalny of Union of Right Forces funds.
"This case has been separated from the criminal case of embezzlement at Kirovles company," he said.
According to the spokesman, the offense occurred in 2007.
"The investigation established that in April 2007 the Union of Right Forces political party and Allekt company signed a contract for advertising services. The political party transferred a total of about 100 million rubles to the current account of Allekt," Markin said.
