MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russians must learn to perceive the decisions of courts and investigators as legitimate for the country to develop forward, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a televised interview Saturday.
Answering a question about a high-profile corruption case that has ensnared several top Defense Ministry officials since late last year, Medvedev said that evaluating the Oboronservis scandal was a matter for investigators.
“Either we trust the investigation, the court, or we call every sentence into question,” he said during a news program on Russia’s state-run television station Channel One.
Russians must learn to accept court decisions as law, “otherwise, we will never achieve what we want,” the prime minister said. “We will never make our country modern, judicial, and developed.”
Oboronservis, a state-run holding company, has been at the center of a probe into the illegal sale of ministry property by high-ranking government officials since late last year. Former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov resigned his post, and Yevgenia Vasilyeva, former head of the Defense Ministry’s property management administration, was placed on house arrest and her assets seized as a result of the ongoing investigation.
