Navalny says authorities want to block his mayoral nomination
(Interfax – June 13, 2013) Opposition activist Alexei Navalny believes that the Kirov Court hearings on the Kirovles case scheduled by the court for June 13 and 14 are aimed at blocking his nomination for Moscow mayor, said his lawyer Sergei Kobelev.
The lawyer said that his client Navalny had notified him that he was supposed to attend a meeting of the RPR-PARNAS party’s Moscow branch on June 14, at which he is supposed to be nominated for the participation in the Moscow mayoral elections.
“In the future, Navalny asks not to reject his requests on postponing the hearings and not to create an artificial pretext for changing his restrictive measure.”
The hearing of the case started on April 17. The investigators claim that Navalny, being an advisor to the Kirov region governor, arranged embezzlement of the state-run timber company Kirovles in collusion with Vyatka Forest Company Director Pyotr Ofitserov and Kirovles General Director Vyacheslav Opalev.
The investigation insists that Navalny and Ofitserov embezzled over 10,000 cubic meters of timber belonging to Kirovles from May to September 2009, causing damage exceeding 16 million rubles to the Kirov regional budget.
Navalny has been charged with major misappropriation of somebody else’s property and Ofitserov with complicity.