Vice president of Skolkovo Foundation suspended

Senior Vice President of the Skolkovo Foundation Alexei Beltyukov has been suspended from work until the situation liked with the criminal case over the payments to parliament member Ilya Ponomaryov is resolved, a representative of the Foundation told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. “Alexei Beltyukov himself wrote an application for his suspension from work. Currently, another staff member of the Foundation performs his duties,” the Skolkovo representative said. Earlier, the Russian Investigative Committee (SK) opened a criminal case over embezzlement against the Foundation’s Vice President Alexei Beltyukov. According to the SK, the top manager concluded a contract with the lawmaker and illegally paid him 750 thousand US dollars from the Foundation’s money for a course of lectures. The SK believes that under the contract Ponomaryov was to receive 300 thousand US dollars. The investigators promised to study the content and scientific value of these lectures. Ponomaryov himself claims that he has done a larger amount of work than indicated in the reports. Beltyukov tried to disguise such a major waste by entering into contracts with Ponomaryov on behalf of the Foundation. According to these contracts, Ponomaryov for 300 thousand US dollars had to deliver 10 lectures in several Russian cities and for 450 thousand US dollars to perform a research project.” The SK Main Investigation Department opened a criminal case against Alexei Beltyukov under Article 160, part 4 of the RF Criminal Code (large scale embezzlement). The criminal case was opened based on the materials of an inquiry in connection with a request by Russian State Duma member Vladimir Zhirinovsky to check the actions of his colleague MP Ilya Ponomaryov for the presence of elements of crime under Article 128.1, part 5 (slander) and Article 289 of the RF Criminal Code (illegal conduct of entrepreneurial activity). The Skolkovo Innovation Centre was created in 2010 to conduct scientific research in the priority spheres of technological development: information, biomedical, energy efficient, nuclear and space technologies. The construction of the innovation town will take about 5 years and will cost about 100 billion roubles. The funding is based on state-private partnership. By 2014 it is planned to fully create the industrial park - a key facility of Skolkovo.