The Chairman of the Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened an investigation against State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomaryov over a crime under part 5 of article 33 and part 4 of article 160 of the RF Penal Code (complicity in embezzlement). According to the current law a permit was received from the State Duma to initiate the investigation.
According to the Investigative Committee, in 2010, Skolkovo and Ponomaryov signed a contract on research activity worth 750 thousand USD. Under the contract Ponomaryov had to make his researches in several stages, make analytical reports and receive reviews from international scientific organizations. Later, apparently, in order to make it impossible to control the progress of researches, Skolkovo Vice President Beltyukov signed with Ponomaryov an additional agreement bringing down the cost of the contract to 450 thousand USD, but in fact cancelled the reports that should have been made on each stage of the research. This way, investigators believe, they created conditions for stealing Skolkovo money for Ponomaryov. To legalize the pay of 450 thousand USD Beltyukov made two reports, which were of no scientific value whatsoever and did not follow the requirements specification, and filed them in fund expenditure documents.
In order to draw the remaining 300 thousand USD, Beltyukov and Ponomaryov concluded another contract under which the State Duma Deputy had to give a number of lectures and seminars on: Commercialization of New Technologies. Sometime later Ponomaryov really filed with Skolkovo documents confirming that he had given those lectures. But when investigators started to figure out what the lectures really were like, each of which cost 30 thousand USD on the average, it turned out that they had been short speeches between 3 and 18 minute-long not connected with the stated subject. However, the reports stated that they were full-time lectures. This way, according to the investigators, Ponomaryov was Beltyukov’s accomplice in embezzling over 22 million rubles of Skolkovo money.
The main Investigations Directorate also continues investigation against Senior Vice President for development and commercialization of Skolkovo Alexey Belyukov charged with a crime under part 4 of article 160 of the RF Penal Code (embezzlement).
Since Ponomaryov is now abroad the investigators are going to put him on an international wanted list and have him extradited to be prosecuted in Russia. At the same time the investigators are going to take measures to compensate for the damage of the crime.
Head of Media Relations V.I. Markin
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