Russia's chief investigator, Aleksandr Bastrykin, has flatly denied allegations that he owns a home and a business in the Czech Republic and has suggested that they are linked to the prosecution of opposition protesters, news agencies reported.

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Anti-corruption blogger and campaigner Aleksey Navalnyy has accused Bastrykin of having a flat and a company and a residency permit in Prague. This is "absolutely untrue", Bastrykin said in a report by Interfax.

But he acknowledged that he used to have a flat there. "It was bought, I think, in 2000 before I became a civil servant," he was quoted as saying. "As I recall, it cost 67,000 dollars."

He was an academic at the time and was planning to work at various places in Europe as a visiting professor, he said, and Prague had a convenient central location. Having acquired the flat, he registered a company as an instrument through which to own it. Obtaining a long-term visa in the Czech Republic was easier as a businessman than as a private individual, he explained.

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"It's only a visa and not a residency permit, I want to stress that," Bastrykin said. He added that since 2008 he had no need for visas because he had been issued with a diplomatic passport in line with his work, so he had sold his interest in the company and had no further part in it. "I didn't sell the flat but simply handed it over to my first wife," he continued.

Bastrykin categorically denied any commercial activity. "I was never in business," he said. "Business in the sense of aiming to make a profit. If they can find a single euro in profit, I'll resign."

Navalnyy's allegations are a response to the ongoing investigations and prosecutions of figures involved in the protest movement, Bastrykin said in a report by RIA Novosti. "We're pursuing a criminal case regarding the mass disturbances on Bolotnaya Square and this is linked with that," he said. "When we started carrying out searches and arrests in the disorder case, that's when these attacks on me began," he added, as quoted by the agency from an interview given to Izvestiya newspaper.

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Russia's chief investigator, Aleksandr Bastrykin, has flatly denied allegations that he owns a home and a business in the Czech Republic and has suggested that they are linked to the prosecution of opposition protesters, news agencies reported.

file photo
Anti-corruption blogger and campaigner Aleksey Navalnyy has accused Bastrykin of having a flat and a company and a residency permit in Prague. This is "absolutely untrue", Bastrykin said in a report by Interfax.

But he acknowledged that he used to have a flat there. "It was bought, I think, in 2000 before I became a civil servant," he was quoted as saying. "As I recall, it cost 67,000 dollars."

He was an academic at the time and was planning to work at various places in Europe as a visiting professor, he said, and Prague had a convenient central location. Having acquired the flat, he registered a company as an instrument through which to own it. Obtaining a long-term visa in the Czech Republic was easier as a businessman than as a private individual, he explained.

file photo
"It's only a visa and not a residency permit, I want to stress that," Bastrykin said. He added that since 2008 he had no need for visas because he had been issued with a diplomatic passport in line with his work, so he had sold his interest in the company and had no further part in it. "I didn't sell the flat but simply handed it over to my first wife," he continued.

Bastrykin categorically denied any commercial activity. "I was never in business," he said. "Business in the sense of aiming to make a profit. If they can find a single euro in profit, I'll resign."

Navalnyy's allegations are a response to the ongoing investigations and prosecutions of figures involved in the protest movement, Bastrykin said in a report by RIA Novosti. "We're pursuing a criminal case regarding the mass disturbances on Bolotnaya Square and this is linked with that," he said. "When we started carrying out searches and arrests in the disorder case, that's when these attacks on me began," he added, as quoted by the agency from an interview given to Izvestiya newspaper.