MOSCOW, February 14 – RAPSI. Sergei Aleksashenko, the former First Deputy Central Bank Board Chairman, has lost the one million ruble (over $33 000) defamation case his filed against Andrei Illarionov, a former adviser to President Vladimir Putin, Ksenia Lyapina, spokesperson for Moscow’s Tagansky District Court, told Izvestia.

Moscow’s Tagansky District Court rejected Aleksashenko’s lawsuit, in which he claimed one million rubles in damages for Illarionov’s allegations that Aleksashenko sold insider information for his own personal gain prior to the August 1998 crisis.

The plaintiff requested that the court recognize statements Illarionov made in his February 9, 2012 interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper as false and damaging to Aleksashenko’s honor and dignity. He also demanded 100,000 (over $3 000) roubles in damages from the paper.

Alexashenko, who at that time was First Deputy Central Bank Board Chairman, reportedly traded on the stock exchange in his own interests using insider information.

The plaintiff asked the court to order Illarionov to refute the following statement within a period of ten days: “It was absolutely insane when Gaidar, Aleksashenko, Kokh and other insiders were trading on the market. These were people working directly in and with the government”.

Criminal responsibility for insider transactions was introduced in Russia only in 2009.