Corruption, Estonia, Financial Services, Legislation

The suspects in the criminal case were Reform Party member, justice minister Kristen Michal and Reform Party members Kalev Lillo, Kalle Palling and Priit Kallakas based on the punitive code provision on violation of restrictions on a party's economic activities or assets and two persons based on the provision of taking and giving bribes.

The State Prosecutor's office concluded after considering all materials in the case that the evidence collected was enough to create the suspicion of a crime but not sufficient to compile a convincing charge.

"Despite collecting all available evidence, in case of every act mentioned in the suspicions it is, eventually, a "word against word" situation since the suspects deny committing acts that they are accused of," said leading state prosecutor Heili Sepp. Sepp added that since the time between the event described and first testimonies in the case is 2-4 years, in essence it is impossible to check whether the allegations of witnesses are absolutely true.

In May this year, Reform Party member Silver Meikar wrote in Postimees that he donated 115,000 EEK in 2009-2010 to the party that was not his money and the origin of which did not know. Meikar claimed that the proposal to donate the money in Meikar's name was made by current justice minister Kristen Michal who then was secretary general of the Reform Party. Meikar claimed that the money was mediated by Kalev Lillo who had a leading post in Reform Party head office then.