Audit Chamber threatens to sue blogger for claiming money laundering at ESPO laying

The Audit Chamber may sue blogger Alexei Navalny by asserting that the materials published in his blog about multi-billion embezzlements during construction of the pipeline "Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean" (ESPO) were untrue. The "Yabloko" Party demands disclosure of the results of the checks conducted by the Audit Chamber, about which the blogger writes.

"Many of the figures, announced in the blog with reference to the Audit Chamber were not mentioned in the report of the Audit Chamber," said on November 24 Valery Goreglyad, Deputy Chairman the Russian Audit Chamber on air of the "Russian News Service".

Mr Goreglyad also said: "If we are blamed that we hid data, and blogger Navalny disclosed the data, we can study the issue of defending the honour and dignity of our organization at court. It is not excluded, although not decided yet."

The auditor emphasized that the documents posted by Navalny on his blog, are not authentic documents of the Audit Chamber. "Officially, we have not received any documents from blogger Navalny to verify authenticity of them. Checking by means of the Internet, you'll agree, is not quite legally justified," added Mr Goreglyad.

Sergey Stepashin, head of the Audit Chamber, said that the amount of embezzlements has nothing to do with reality; and the government even expressed gratitude to the "Transneft" for the construction of the pipeline, the "Polit.ru" writes.

Alexei Navalny doubts that the Chamber will sue him, noting that its officials only make statements, but never disclose any documents. However, as noted by the blogger, Goreglyad will have a chance to litigate, "if he wishes so," since Sergey Mitrokhin, leader of the "Yabloko" Party, is going to sue the Audit Chamber if it fails to voluntarily present its report about the audit of the OJSC "Transneft".

According to Mr Mitrokhin, the documents at disposal of Alexei Navalny evidence the war between the old and new leadership of the "Transneft".

The publication of documents, possessed by Navalny, would deal a serious indirect blow on the current leadership of "Transneft" and Russian government. After all, the documents reveal details of the scheme, which has not changed since, said Vladimir Milov, leader of the movement "Democratic Choice" and head of the Energy Policy Institute.

In particular, the company "Summa Kapital" began receiving huge contracts from the "Transneft", having no experience in constructing trunk pipelines, wrote Mr Milov in his article published in the "Gazeta.Ru".

In his opinion, apart from political will, there are no other obstacles for de-classifying the report of the Audit Chamber of the "Transneft".