Crime, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Railways

"In Latvia there's big political pressure on this investigation. In view of this it would be good in my opinion for a fair and impartial procedure to bring this matter over to Estonia," Ossinvoski said in an interview published in the LP weekend supplement of Eesti Paevaleht.

"I wrote a letter to the Latvian prosecutor's office and we will write to the prosecutor's office of Estonia too. Since everything that we are being accused of belongs under the jurisdiction of Estonia – the agreement was [made] in Estonia, we gave the money in Estonia – then let Latvia hand this court case over to Estonia. This case has to be solved here," he said.

Ossinovski said it isn't known at this point when the case will be tried in Latvia. "But I believe in the impartiality of the Estonian judiciary and want this whole thing to be handled here," he said.

Ossinovski maintains that in paying Magonis 500,000 euros he did everything right, as he was buying a service from Magonis, for the latter to represent his interests in negotiations with Russian Railways.

"Legally, I did everything right and consulted also with my Estonian lawyers. I had a legal assessment in my pocket that it can be done and is allowed to be done in this way. I prepared myself profoundly, because this was a large scale and sensitive business project after all," he said.

According to Ossinovski, in the summer of 2014 his plant in Daugavpils, Latvia was deprived of orders of Russian Railways and there was an urgent need to agree with Russian Railways for the orders to be resumed.

"It was about an order worth 20 mln euros. We didn't know how to solve this problem. I don't have connections like this. Then I asked my good friend Ugis Magonis for help. That could he help? He had influential contacts in the then management of Russian Railways. He agreed. It's obvious that you had to pay for that work. It was a very big job indeed," Ossinovski said.

"Ugis came to Estonia, we talked everything over. I gave him money in Estonia, he came here especially for that. We didn't hide ourselves, we didn't conceal ourselves, everything we did is official. There was nothing criminal in it in our opinion," he said. "It's also very important that these connections that I hoped to benefit from were Ugis's personal connections. Of him as a private individual, not as a Latvian official. It's clear that he will have to declare that money, will apparently have to ask the ministry for approval and so forth."

Ossinovski said the money he paid to Magonis was his own money earned as dividend income. "It's up to him, why he wished it to be cash," he said.

Ossinovski said he sees a conflict with Saskana, one of the most influential parties in Latvia, as the reason why things have gone so far. "When Ugis was arrested and I was declared suspect as well, representatives of the party sought contact with me and offered their services 'to solve this problem.' Let's put it this way that our notions of good behavior differed and we quarreled over this instead," he said.

Prosecutors in Latvia in July formally charged Ossinovski with giving 499,500 euros to Latvian Railways ex-CEO Ugis Magonis as a bribe.