Prosecutor's Office expands Isamaa party illicit funding suspicions
Isamaa remains suspected of accepting prohibited donations as a criminal investigation into the party enters the final stage of pretrial proceedings, though the party maintains it has done nothing wrong.
As the latest procedural step, the Prosecutor's Office amended the notice of suspicion issued to Isamaa.
"The defense attorneys for the suspects are currently reviewing the materials in the criminal case and have one month to submit motions," said Chief State Prosecutor Taavi Pern. He added that a decision can then be made on whether to bring charges and send the case to court.
Under the law, only private individuals may make donations to political parties and such donations must be reported to the Political Parties Financing Surveillance Committee (ERJK).
Lawmakers have stipulated that legal entities, such as companies and nonprofit organizations, may not donate to political parties because doing so makes it easy to conceal the true donors and render party financing opaque.
According to the Central Criminal Police's notice of suspicion, two legal entities provided Isamaa with nearly €308,000 worth of services, primarily advertising services, between 2020 and 2023, for which the party did not pay.
The costs associated with the services were also not reflected in the party's financial reports, nor were the services declared to ERJK as donations.
According to the notice of suspicion, some of the party's senior members or representatives knew that the legal entities were acting for the party's benefit, accepted this and used the benefits received in the party's interests. Isamaa is therefore suspected of accepting a prohibited donation.
Pern said that six individuals and three legal entities were initially named as suspects in the criminal case. The Prosecutor's Office terminated the investigation into one of the suspects, Mart Maastik, after finding no evidence of a possible offense in his actions.
Suspicions expanded
According to Isamaa Secretary General Andres Metsoja, there is nothing new in the notice of suspicion.
"In the first version of the notice of suspicion, the entire €330,000 in question was not attributed to Isamaa as allegedly constituting the acceptance of a prohibited donation," Metsoja said.
Metsoja said he believes no new circumstances have emerged, even though the case has been under investigation since March.
"Now they are saying that Isamaa allegedly accepted a prohibited donation on a larger scale," Metsoja explained. "We want to establish exactly what circumstances they are referring to again or additionally."
"For us, this means a large amount of material that needs to be reviewed. Isamaa continues to maintain that we have not accepted anything prohibited. The scope and extent of the notice of suspicion remain the same as they were initially; only the details have been clarified," Metsoja said.
The secretary general said he has met with the investigator and clearly stated that Isamaa does not consider itself guilty of any wrongdoing.
He added that Isamaa will review the materials and will certainly submit additional questions to seek clarification.
"The most important thing is that one suspect, Mart Maastik, has been removed from the proceedings and is no longer a suspect," Metsoja said.
Metsoja said he does not know why the proceedings against Maastik were terminated. "We will also seek the termination of proceedings against Isamaa and the other parties involved," he said.
--
Editor: Marcus Turovski
