Corruption, Estonia, Legislation, Port, Transport

"Public prosecutor Laura Feldmanis decided to add the materials forwarded to the prosecutor's office by the investigating committee to the criminal case by which allegations of corruption in Port of Tallinn are being investigated," Ilmar Kahro, spokesman for the Public Prosecutor's Office, told BNS.

"Hence the Internal Security Service and the prosecutor's office are checking over the circumstances related to the purchase of the icebreaker Botnica in the framework of the already ongoing criminal procedure," he added.

The parliamentary committee of investigation to identify possible corruption risks at Port of Tallinn asked the public prosecutor's office to open a criminal probe in connection with its suspicions that false information was supplied about the icebreaker Botnica.

"In the process of its work, the committee of investigation has begun to suspect that the data concerning the evaluation of the icebreaker Botnica acquired by Port of Tallinn in 2012 was not correct and objective and the icebreaker was bought for a higher price than its actual value," chairman of the committee Artur Talvik said.

The state-owned port company bought the icebreaker in 2012 for 50 million euros.

Officers of the Internal Security Service (ISS) detained Port of Tallinn CEO Ain Kaljurand and board member Allan Kiil as suspects in bribe-taking on Aug. 26 last year. They were released at the beginning of January and placed under electronic surveillance.

The former Port of Tallinn top executives are suspected of accepting bribes on a large scale over a period of several years at least since 2009. The Public Prosecutor's Office has said the placement of orders for the construction of two new ferries at a shipyard in Gdansk, Poland is a central point of the investigation.