A criminal case has been instituted against the State Duma deputy Ponomarev, the source claims

The criminal case was instituted against the State Duma deputy from the Fair Russia faction Ilya Ponomarev, in early April deprived of inviolability of colleagues in the lower house of the Russian parliament. On Thursday, a source familiar with the situation said about this on Thursday. There is no official confirmation of this information yet.

According to the interlocutor of the agency, on the basis of the decision of the State Duma at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office on the deprivation of Ponomarev’s immunity, the investigating authorities opened a criminal case against him under Part 5 of Art. 33 and Part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code (complicity in embezzlement) on theft of millions of the Skolkovo Foundation. The lower house agreed to initiate proceedings against Ponomarev on April 7.

Ilya Ponomarev is currently in the United States and is not going to return to Russia. Although the deputy left the Fair Russia party, it is formally that he is still in the SR faction in the State Duma.

Meanwhile, in the leadership of the Duma faction of the Socialist -Revolutionaries, they were not surprised by the fact of the alleged initiation of a criminal case against their former one -partyist. “This is the expected event,” the first deputy leader of the faction Mikhail Emelyanov told Interfax. “As for the“ fair Russia ”, we have long expelled him from his ranks, he has nothing to do with us for several years, so let justice be done,” he said, reminding that if the court proves Ponomarev’s guilt and pronounces the sentence, he will be deprived of the deputy mandate.

The presentation of the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to consent to the initiation against Ilya Ponomarev of the criminal case was received by the State Duma on March 25. According to the investigation, the deputy took an “most active part” in embezzlement of 22 million rubles of the Skolkovo Foundation, with which he had concluded contracts for research and lectures. The fund accused the parliamentarian of violating the terms of the contract. Having examined the lawsuit, the court ordered Ponomarev to pay 2.7 million rubles to the victim.

Ponomarev did not agree with the decision and tried to challenge him. Initially, the deputy said that he was not going to obey the court decision, but then he decided to pay the debt in units from his deputy salary. To avoid possible detention, Ponomarev left the country last year. He stated that he would not return to Russia until he receives guarantees that he would not ban the exit outside the country.

In early April, when he was deprived of inviolability, Ponomarev said that he would decide on a return to the Russian Federation in May, when his debt would be completely paid. Meanwhile, according to the information posted at the Bank for the Executive Production of the Federal Bailiff Service, Ponomarev’s debt is currently 1 million 422 thousand 749 rubles.

The official representative of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Vladimir Markin, giving comments to Interfax before the deprivation of Ponomarev’s immunity, said that if this happens, a case would be instituted against him on theft of millions from the Skolkovo Foundation. He noted that, according to investigators, Ponomarev "made aiding" to the senior vice-president of the Skolkovo Foundation Alexei Beltyukov in embezzlement of the organization’s money.

Markin recalled that SK continues the investigation of the criminal case against Beltyukov under Part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the fact of waste of money of the organization at the complicity of Ponomarev and in his favor.

Investigators found out that in 2010, the Skolkovo Foundation entered into an agreement with Ilya Ponomarev for the implementation of research work, the value of which was 750 thousand dollars under this agreement provided for Ponomarev’s work in several stages with the preparation of analytical reports and obtaining reviews of international scientific organizations. Later, the Vice President of Skolkovo Beltyukov signed an additional agreement with Ponomarev, which reduced the value of the contract to 450 thousand dollars.

Thus, according to the investigation, the alleged accomplices created the conditions for the theft of Skolkovo funds in favor of Ponomarev. In order to legalize 450 thousand dollars, Beltyukov made two fictitious reports under the guise of research work and introduced them to documents on the expenditure of money, investigators came to the conclusion.

To “master” the remaining amount of 300 thousand dollars, Beltyukov concluded another agreement with Ponomarev, under the terms of which the deputy had to conduct a lecture and seminars. According to the investigation, while each of these lectures was estimated on average at $ 30 thousand, in fact, these were short blitzes from three to 18 minutes, and at events not related to the stated theme.

Ilya Ponomarev considers the criminal prosecution against himself "exclusively politically motivated" and lying "outside any legal field."