Estonia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has opened a criminal investigation of the leadership of the Narva city council over suspected embezzlement, ERR reports. The investigation is looking at possibly illegal payouts to the chairman of the city council, Mihhail Stalnuhhin, and his deputy, Jana Kondrasova. Earlier, city councillors Aleksei Jevgrafov and Jaan Toots of the Estonian Centre Party (Keskerakond) filed a complaint over the payouts. This was after Stalnuhhin accused Jevgrafov and Toots of attempted bribery. The Prosecutor General’s Office found no grounds to investigate Stalnuhhin’s allegations against Jevgrafov and Toots, however.
Meanwhile, two leaders of the pro-Russian party, Together (KOOS), Aivo Peterson and Dmitri Rootsi, have appealed to the Supreme Court against their sentences for treason, ERR reported. Earlier, the Tallinn Circuit Court upheld the convictions and increased Peterson’s prison sentence from 14 to 16 years, while affirming Rootsi’s 10-year sentence. The third man convicted in the case, Russian citizen Andrei Andronov, did not appeal his prison sentence of 10.5 years. The three men had tried to form an armed group in support of Russia. The Prosecutor General’s Office also appealed the circuit court ruling to the Supreme Court.