MOSCOW, August 1 (RAPSI) — CEO of BKF bank, Olga Mirimskaya, has filed a complaint with a Moscow district court challenging inaction of Russia’s Investigative Committee as concerns the authority’s refusal to investigate an alleged fact of a massive slander campaign on a Telegram channel.

The channel in question, Cheka-OGPU, made about 60 “untrue” publications about Mirimskaya in 2020 – 2021, the CEO’s lawyer Alexander Chernov told RAPSI.

Mirimskaya filed an application addressed to the chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin yet in March 2022, Chernov said.

These publications, as alleged by Chernov, contain information that is damaging the business and personal reputation of Mirimskaya, and are based on information disseminated on the aforesaid Telegram channel and via various media outlets by lawyer of Mirimskaya’s former partner, co-owner of the Golden Crown payment system, Nikolay Smirnov, Vadim Bagaturia.

Earlier, the Moscow Regional Chamber of Lawyers had initiated disciplinary proceedings against Bagaturia on allegations of gross violations of the norms of lawyer ethics; however, later the Chamber’s Council terminated the proceedings.

According to Chernov, Lyudmila Kolobkova, deputy head of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee, refused to register Mirimskaya's complaint as it was not a report of a crime.

The client and the lawyer did not agree with these conclusions and challenged the refusal in the Moscow Basmanny District Court.

Also, Mirimskaya’s defense filed a statement with the Russian security service FSB asking for an assessment of slanderous publications that she allegedly gave bribes totaling $7 million to the head of the “K” department, Ivan Tkachev, and the first deputy chairman of the Investigative Committee, Eduard Kaburneev, said Chernov.

The chairman of the board of BKF bank Mirimskaya was arrested on December 17, 2021 in a bribery case. According to investigators, she organized the purchase of two cars worth 3.2 million rubles for Yuri Nosov, an investigator from the Moscow Regional Office of the federal Investigative Committee, who participated in the investigation into the abduction of her newborn daughter in 2015.

Mirimskaya is charged with giving a bribe on an especially large scale, and Nosov, who is also in custody, is charged with taking a bribe on an especially large scale. Both persons deny guilt.