Russia has detained a top engineer on its delayed Vostochny cosmodrome project on suspicion of accepting a bribe, investigators said Monday in the latest setback for the country's troubled space programme.
The FSB security service arrested the engineer overseeing road construction materials at the site on suspicion of taking a 50,000-ruble ($632) bribe from contractors, the Investigative Committee of the far eastern Amur region where the project is located said in a statement.
Russia is building the $4.8 billion cosmodrome at Vostochny, some 7,800 kilometres (4,846 miles) east of Moscow, to make its space programme independent of former Soviet neighbour Kazakhstan, where it currently rents the Baikonur cosmodrome used for trips to the International Space Station and satellite launches.
The high-profile project, with a budget is estimated at 300 billion rubles ($3.8 billion at the current exchange rate ), has been beset with multiple corruption probes and complaints from workers that they have not been paid.
Tatiana Golikova, the head of the national audit chamber, said last year that the total overspend at Vostochny exceeded 13 billion rubles.
Investigators in the latest case said that the engineer received a bribe for ensuring that the contractor's building materials were accepted without any problems.
The suspect was caught allegedly in the act of taking the bribe in a car.
If charged and found guilty, the engineer faces up to six years in prison and would have to pay back six times the value of the bribe.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the space sector, responded to the engineer's detention on Twitter, saying: "We warned all of you: don't thieve."
Russian President Vladimir Putin in a visit in October said it was realistic for the first unmanned launches to take place in spring 2016 rather than in December 2015 as planned. Manned flights are planned to start in 2025.
The state company in charge of the construction, Spetsstroi has filed 31 cases over contractors, asking for compensation of more than 4 billion rubles.
It has won 17 of the cases, resulting in a payback of 3.5 billion rubles, said Spetsstroi's deputy director Alexander Mordovets on Monday in an interview with RIA Novosti state news agency.
