Witness in illegal gambling case may have been murdered for domestic motives
MOSCOW. Aug 5 (Interfax) - The claims that Alexei Prilepsky, a witness in the case of illegal gambling in the Moscow region, knew too much about gambling and personally brought money to former senior official from the Moscow region prosecutor's office Dmitry Urumov are an exaggeration, a suspect in the case, Marat Mamyyev, has said.
"He definitely did not pass over anything to Urumov. Once he drove Urumov around in relation to some personal affairs. He handed [money] over to other people. I cannot speak of that because of the investigation," Mamyyev said in an interview published in the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily on Friday.
He said that Prilepsky was inclined to drinking and could exaggerate things to add importance to his job.
"So far, Alexei's murder remains a mystery to me. I don't rule out the possibility that it may have been a drunken brawl, but there should have been some motive," Mamyyev said.
He also denied reports that Prilepsky's wife had looked for premises for casinos. He said that Alexei's brother, Alexander, who was a driver of Nazarov, the key figure in the case, was in constant contact with Urumov.
As for bribes to prosecutors for covering up illegal gambling, everything began on July 1, 2009, when gambling clubs were banned, Mamyyev said.
"Gaming zones continued to function everywhere in Moscow and the Moscow region in those days. I don't know who paid whom but I can guess," he said.
Then, at some point, Nazarov fell into "the prosecutors' trap" and failed to get out of it, Mamyyev said.
He dismissed as absurd media reports that incomes from the operations of illegal casinos ranged from $5 million to $15 million a year. "You can easily divide the sum by 10 and then subtract 80% and you get the net profit," he added.
Mamyyev told the newspaper that immediately after his arrest he wanted to start cooperating with the investigation, but that his lawyer persuaded him not to do so. "If you start speaking, it will all be used against you," the lawyer warned.
Now, Nazarov together with other suspects is under the witness protection program and cannot contact even his wife who is expecting a baby.