Prosecutors: Navalny Accepts Illegal Foreign Donations

Russian prosecutors said Monday that Moscow mayoral candidate and opposition leader Alexei Navalny has accepted illegal donations from abroad to fund his electoral campaign. The allegations were immediately denied by Navalny, while Yandex.Money, the online electronic payments system used by the Navalny campaign, said that it had not been contacted by prosecutors over the issue. “The information about foreign funding for Navalny’s electoral campaign was confirmed during checks,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in an online statement published Monday. “More than 300 foreign individuals and organizations, and anonymous donors from 46 countries (including the United States, Finland, Britain, Sweden and Canada) from 347 IP addresses have sent money to the electronic fund of Navalny and members of his campaign headquarters,” the statement said. Navalny ridiculed prosecutors in a subsequent blog post, pointing out that a foreign IP address does not mean that a donation was made by a foreign citizen and adding that all donations to his campaign were approved by Moscow’s Election Commission or were returned to the donors.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130812/182718858/Navalnys-Moscow-Mayor-Bid-Took-Illegal-Foreign-Cash---Prosecutors.html