MOSCOW, May 6 (RAPSI) - Moscow Military Prosecutor Viktor Ivanov has filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Commercial Court for the termination of a contract under which the District Warehouse of the Moscow Department of Anti-Air Defense Forces, a unit reporting to Russia's Defense Ministry, sold a plot of land and buildings in central Moscow to City Engineering company, RIA Novosti reports Wednesday.

The preliminary hearing of the case was scheduled for June 2. The co-plaintiff is the Defense Ministry. The plaintiffs are suing to invalidate the purchase and sale agreement for a 1,800 square meter plot of land in central Moscow and three buildings on the land (900 square meters total) that was signed on December 1, 2011.

The court documents do not state the value of the transaction. Earlier it was reported that this state property was sold for about 170 million rubles ($3.4 mln). The deal is subject to investigation as part of the Oboronservis criminal case. According to the Russian Registry, the cadastral value of the plot is over 276 million rubles ($5.5. mln), which is significantly lower than its market value.

The scandal around a major embezzlement within the Defense Ministry’s Oboronservis holding cost the minister of defense Anatoly Serdyukov his post and resulted in the criminal prosecution of his subordinate, Yevgeniya Vasilyeva. The Investigative Committee charged the former head of the Defense Ministry’s Property Relations Department and her accomplices with the theft of over 3 billion rubles ($60 mln) when selling the ministry’s property. Vasilyeva denies the allegations and claims the deals were legal.

On Wednesday, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow found Vasilyeva guilty of embezzling military property.