“Responding to this claim, which appeared more than a year after my resignation, I am filing a lawsuit for defamation,” the 75 year old former mayor said, adding that “not a single Moscow government official” faced prosecution during his tenure as mayor.
“We live in a sick state where the law enforcement system is itself mired in corruption and where an objective judicial system is absent,” Luzhkov said.
Luzhkov said that the Kremlin was using bully tactics, initiating the investigation of him because of an interview he gave to Radio Liberty last week that was highly critical of the ruling United Russia Party, including Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Neither Luzhkov nor his wife have been charged with a crime, but the former official has been accused by critics of helping his wife, Yelena Baturina, Russia’s wealthiest woman, get rich by funneling government contracts to her construction company.
