Former diplomat and Riga City Council deputy Bremanis is being tried for embezzlement of funds from the Latvian embassy

Photo: LETA

The Riga City Court will continue the hearing of the criminal case today at 10:00, in which Riga City Council deputy Rudolf Bremanis is accused of embezzling and misappropriating 102,721 euros belonging to Latvia during his diplomatic career, reports the LETA agency, citing court information.

Earlier, the prosecutor's office submitted a criminal case to the court, accusing him of abuse of office, fraud, and large-scale embezzlement. The charges have been brought against an official of the Latvian embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reported the prosecutor's office spokesperson Laura Maevska.

According to the prosecutor's office, the accused, being a state official with the right to dispose of funds in the embassy's bank account and an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, fraudulently embezzled funds belonging to Latvia, totaling more than 102,721 euros, from 2013 to 2016. He committed illegal actions, abusing his official position and acting against the interests of the service.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously confirmed to the LETA agency that the employment relationship with Bremanis was terminated on January 31, 2017, by mutual agreement.

According to the LETA agency archive, Bremanis once headed the Latvian embassy in Abu Dhabi as chargé d'affaires. He was also the permanent representative of Latvia to the International Renewable Energy Agency, headed the department for promoting foreign economic relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, worked as the second secretary at the Latvian embassy in the USA, and served as a political and development advisor in Afghanistan.

As previously reported by the de facto program of Latvian Television, the most notable action of the former chargé d'affaires of the Latvian embassy in the UAE was a dinner he organized in Dubai in 2017. Bremanis managed to seat then-President of Latvia Raimonds Vējonis, a certain sheikh, and entrepreneur Ainars Slesers at the same table, allegedly without the president's knowledge.

"I can only say that the ministry made a decision [to terminate the employment relationship] based on quite serious information that was passed to us and was at our disposal, but I would not like to comment on this in more detail, as there are a number of issues that are being resolved further," said Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs to the program at that time.

Referring to information from the Register of Enterprises, the de facto program reported that the Security Police (SP) seized Bremanis's property in December 2018, at which time he was considered a suspect. Later, the seizure was also imposed on the shares of his company Middle East Latvia Holding.