New Suspicions Emerge in VEB Fund Case
After a hearing today by Parliament's special investigative committee on the VEB Fund, the chairman said that new theories and suspicions have surfaced.
"In two months we have gathered and worked through a large amount of paper and materials. The result is that several new scenarios and suspicions have arisen, and we are waiting to confirm or overturn these during further questioning," Rainer Vakra said in a statement from Parliament's press service.
In an initial round of questioning, the five-member committee focused on gathering information from institutions, including the National Audit Office, the Bank of Estonia, SEB, the Supreme Court, the Government Office and the VEB Fund Foundation. The committee also sent queries to authorities, such as the Prosecutor's Office and intelligence agencies.
The National Audit Office is conducting its own investigation, which was announced in March and is expected to take a year. In February, auditor Mihkel Oviir said the independent government agency had proposed an audit of the VEB fund as early as 2004, but that Parliament had not found it needed at the time.
In January, the Bank of Estonia released an internal audit, which found that in 1995 officials at the Bank of Estonia falsified documents in what may have been an attempt to salvage some of the funds frozen in a Soviet-era bank.
The committee is supposed to determine why the central bank falsified the letter and whether any financial transactions were carried out based on the letter. The deadline for presenting its findings was set for October 1.