MOSCOW, February 14 - RAPSI. Leonid Reiman, former communications minister and former presidential aide under Dmitry Medvedev, has filed a libel lawsuit against Timofei Dzyadko over an article he wrote while serving as an editor for Forbes Russia, according to an Izvestia report.

Reiman claims that Dzyadko published an article which defamed his honor, dignity and business reputation.

Officials at the Tverskoy District Court in Moscow refused to disclose the nature of the lawsuit or the sum of the damages being claimed.
Reiman's lawyers also declined to comment.

Dzyadko believes that the lawsuit is connected with his article entitled "Leonid Reiman: Communications Man, Minister and Suspect," which was posted on the Forbes website in February 2012. Dzyadko said he does not know what aspect of the article could be taken as defamatory.

Forbes' lawyers and Regina von Flemming, CEO of Axel Springer Russia which publishes the Forbes magazine in Russia, refused to comment before the court's ruling.

Dzyadko wrote in the article that Reiman was involved in a money laundering investigation conducted in Germany. The prosecutor's office of Frankfurt am Main and the German criminal police, who have been investigating a case concerning the theft of $150 million from Commerzbank AG since 2003, suspected Reiman of money laundering.

This is not the first lawsuit Reiman has been involved in. In 2007, investment banker Leonid Rozhetskin filed a suit with a New York court demanding $500 million in reputation and financial damages from Reiman.

Leonid Reiman was Russia's communications minister from 2000 to 2008, after which he became an aide to President Dmitry Medvedev (until September 2010) and then took up business.

Timofei Dzyadko, former editor of Forbes Russia, is now a correspondent of Vedomosti newspaper.