Kamchatka town mayor suspended

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, January 8 (Itar-Tass) - Mayor of the town of
Vilyuchinsk on the Kamchatka peninsula Alexander Markman, charged with
abuse of office, has been suspended, an official at the regional
department of the Investigations Committee under the Prosecutor General's
Office (SKP) told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
Criminal proceedings against the mayor were opened on September 1,
2009, but regional prosecutors overturned the resolution on the criminal
case on September 4.
Later, the court of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky ruled that the
prosecutor's move had been illegal.
According to the investigators, the Vilyuchinsk mayor illegally funded
the purchase of three apartments: in Moscow, Moscow Region and Kursk in
the period from 2000 to 2005. The apartments were purchased "in
circumvention of the queue of the residents who wished to leave the
restricted access town for good and had the right to housing in other
towns of the country," the investigators said.
The apartments were purchased for the Vilyuchinsk policed chief and
two Town Hall employees.
In Moscow, a one-room apartment was purchased for 592,000 roubles, a
two-room apartment in the Moscow region cost 870,000 roubles and a
two-room apartment in Kursk cost 875,000 roubles.
The mayor's actions caused a damage to the town budget, in the amount
of more than two million roubles, the SKP said.

-0-myz