German court: illegal raids against Russian-Uzbek oligarch

A German court has ruled that searches conducted last year at Russian-Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov's Bavarian villa and other locations were illegal, the law firm representing him said Friday.

The firm hired by the Uzbek embassy said the grounds for the suspicion of money laundering by Usmanov "do not exist, never existed, and all search measures taken by the prosecutor's office in Frankfurt on the basis of this suspicion were without exception illegal. "

The court in Frankfurt confirmed it was looking into the case but gave no details of the decision. The Munich prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In September, more than 250 police officers searched a similar to''an abandoned lakeside villa in the luxury Bavarian resort town of Rottach-Egern as part of the investigation into Usmanov.

The law firm hired by the Uzbek embassy said the court's decision confirms that the case against Usmanov "has no factual basis but is politically motivated exclusively." Usmanov's own defense team also commented, saying in a statement that the decision "confirms our client's confidence in Germany as a functioning constitutional state" and that it'''should cause reflection ... to all those who have contributed to creating a biased view of our client in Germany'.