A Moscow court has rejected on Friday a lawsuit filed by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny against President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner, filed a lawsuit on Thursday against President Putin. He accused the Russian leader of violating corruption laws by awarding government financing to a company partly owned by his son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov.
According to Reuters, the lawsuit cited an investigation report which found that Shamalov received $1.75 billion in funding from the Russia's National Welfare Fund at an unusually low interest rate last year.
A lawsuit filed in the Tverskoi court in Moscow said Putin has violated Russian corruption laws by failing to declare a conflict of interest when he personally approved the government financing.
Navalny claims the funds were allocated to the construction of a petrochemical complex, after Putin's son-in-law became a shareholder in the company, The Moscow Times reports.
Navalny wrote on his blog that its an undeniable fact that Putin personally made decision to give his son-in-law's company $1.75 billion from the National Welfare Fund. "Any normal person (even if he is a supporter of Putin) will agree that there is a conflict of interest here," he wrote.
Shamalov, a major shareholder in petrochemicals producer Sibur, is the husband of a woman reported to be Putin's daughter. Shamalov holds a 21.3 percent stake in Sibur, making him the company's second largest shareholder.
A Sibur spokesman said the funds was approved in strict accordance with the law. The Russian Direct Investment Fund said it fully complied with procedures for investing state money in infra-structure projects.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin was not aware of the lawsuit.
On Friday, a spokeswoman for the Tverskoi district court, Anastasia Dzyurko, said that a judge rejected Navalny's lawsuit because it did not qualify for consideration under "administrative proceedings," according to RFERL.
A member of Putin's ruling United Russia Party and head of the security committee in the lower house of parliament, Irina Yarova, said that Navalny's lawsuit was aimed at discrediting Putin ahead of a high profile annual conference that was held on Feb 12 in Munich.
Navalny sarcastically said on Twitter that he was "dumbfounded and shocked" by the judge decision. He said that he thought it was interesting that the court's decision to reject his suit had nothing to do with its substance but was due "apparently" to a technicality.
A lawyer representing Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, said that the judge had no right to reject the lawsuit and they would appeal the decision.
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