Russian President orders investigation into Olympic corruption charges

Wed, Sep  29, 2010 - By Radio Free Europe

MOSCOW -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has decided to call for an investigation into corruption surrounding the construction of facilities for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.

The independent Russian newspaper "Novaya gazeta" published an article last month containing a copy of a memorandum from Medvedev to Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika about corrupt practices during preparatory work at Sochi.

The document bore the presidential stamp and the instructions: "Investigate and report."

The "Novaya gazeta" article described in detail how senior officials in the Presidential Affairs Department demanded a 1.5 million-ruble ($50,000) kickback from Valery Morozov, the head of the construction company Moskonverstprom, which was bidding to be a developer for the Olympic facilities in Sochi.

Roman Anin, the author of the article, told RFE/RL that he doesn't know how Medvedev's signature ended up on the memorandum, but he didn't think it was a forgery.

"I don't have an answer; but I think it's simply the result of several converging circumstances," Anin said. "First, that the president had looked into the case even before [the article was published] and this isn't his first intervention. And we pursued the story and wrote about it a lot."

Anin said he thought someone close to Morozov passed the article to Medvedev.

"[Morozov] has cooperated with the department of presidential affairs for a long time and there are probably people there who sympathize with him," Anin said.

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