Lawyer: Former education minister definitely not pleading guilty
Lawyer of Estonia's former Minister of Education and Research Mailis Reps said in an interview with Kuku Raadio that the prosecutor's office has not been very objective in drawing up the charges and claimed that the prosecutor's office's bias stands out in many aspects.
"She definitely will not [plead guilty] because so many different things have been lumped together here - several small invoices and relatively small things with regard to which the prosecutor's office claims that Mailis Reps had been systematically acting with the goal to mislead the ministry so that certain expenses be compensated for her. This moment of misleading is essentially completely impossible to prove, however. A witness confirms that she generally didn't even handle the invoice. There are numerous very strange and notable conflicts in the charges," Keres said.
The lawyer said the prosecutor's office has not been very objective in handling the case. "Many aspects demonstrate the prosecutor's office's bias towards a direction that is unfavorable for Mailis Reps. This is not a conspiracy theory," Keres said.
He said that the prosecutor's office has lumped together several cases concerning the use of some €60, €70 and €150, for example. However, according to the lawyer, the expenses were completely different, made at different times an in different situations.
"The prosecutor's office has attempted to stitch them together into a criminal case by claiming that these individual cases have been guided by the same intent. This is why they have managed to make it into a criminal case, otherwise they would be misdemeanor cases," Keres said.
On Monday, the Office of the Prosecutor General brought charges of embezzlement and fraudulent conduct against Reps. According to the statement of charges, Reps has used around €7,500 of ministry money to cover her personal expenses.
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Editor: Kristjan Kallaste