Former official says he was offered €1m bribe in Magonis' case

Take note – story published 7 years ago

Juris Jurašs, recently fired as head of the Corruption Prevention Bureau's (KNAB) Criminal Intelligence Process Division, says that he was offered a bribe of €1m to change the charges against the former Latvian Railways head Uģis Magonis, Jurašs said in an interview with the Ir magazine, reported LETA Thursday.

Jurašs was fired from his post by the bureau's chief Jaroslavs Streļčenoks on Tuesday 

Jurašs claimed in the interview that he was offered the hefty sum to change the charges from bribery to trading in influence, which carries a much lighter sentence.

According to Jurašs, he had reported the offer to KNAB Chief Streļčenoks, but no investigation followed - not to Jurašs' knowledge at least.

It is hard to say whether the person who offered the bribe could be caught or not, but Jurašs noted that this information could and should have been checked.

Jurašs also told the magazine that, after communicating with the heads of the KNAB, he had the impression that "no one cares" that he was offered a bribe.

It was not the first time Jurašs was offered a bribe - persons who had tried to bribe him in the past were apprehended and convicted.

Streļčenoks is currently on vacation, so the magazine was unable to learn his side of the story. If Jurašs' story bears scrutiny, pressure on Streļčenoks, whose term is due to run out in 2016, is expected to mount.

As reported, KNAB officers detained the former railways head Uģis Magonis last summer.

He is suspected of accepting a €500,000 bribe from Estonian millionaire Oleg Ossinovski so that Latvian Railways subsidiary LDz Ritosa Sastava Serviss would purchase four old locomotives for several million euros from Ossinovski's company Skinest.

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