Prosecutor’s office in breakaway Abkhazia said it had dropped libel charges from leader of the Abkhaz opposition People’s Party, Iakub Lakoba, Abkhaz news agency, Apsnipress, reported on February 18.

Lakoba was charged with “slandering” head of Russia’s state audit chamber Sergei Stepashin and arrested on January 21. He was released a day later, but charges were not dropped at the time.

Apsnipress reported that the Abkhaz prosecutor’s office cited a statement by the Russian state audit agency that it would not seek any legal proceedings against Lakoba as a reason behind dropping charges.

In an article published on his party's website on January 15, Lakoba blasted Stepashin for, as he suggested, trying to paper over financial violations in Abkhazia, which were revealed as a result of the audit of aid funds allocated by Moscow to Abkhazia in 2009-2010.