MOSCOW, March 26 (RAPSI) – Ilya Ponomaryov, a lawmaker in Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, may be stripped  of immunity over embezzlement at state-owned innovation hub Skolkovo, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday, citing the deputy chairman of the A Just Russia party, Mikhail Yemelyanov.

On Wednesday, Ponomaryov, who was expelled from A Just Russia, wrote on his Facebook page that the Prosecutor General’s Office had asked the State Duma to strip him of his parliamentary immunity. Yury Shuvalov, the Deputy State Duma Chief of Staff, confirmed that the lower house of parliament had received documents from the Prosecutor General’s Office.

House Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office was linked with a Skolkovo embezzlement case.

Skolkovo filed a lawsuit to force Ponomaryov to repay the 9 million rubles he had received for lectures he was contracted to provide.

Skolkovo claimed that only one of the contracted 10 lectures was of any reputable academic value, and that he had not delivered the remaining nine lectures.

Ponomaryov argued that the bulk of the money had been spent on technical expenses and that he had only kept a tiny part of the sum.

In August 2013, Moscow's Gagarinsky District Court ordered Ponomaryov to pay 2.7 million rubles to the Skolkovo Foundation for an unreasonably overpriced service. The Moscow City Court upheld the ruling in November.

The Skolkovo Foundation, set up in 2010 by then President Dmitry Medvedev, is the primary agency for the Skolkovo high-tech development hub, which includes a business center, a science and technology institute and a management school.