YAKUTSK, Russia -- Police are conducting searches in the building of the regional parliament, or Il Tumen, of Russia's Far Eastern region of Sakha-Yakutia.
Local media reports quote sources in Il Tumen as saying searches are being conducted in the offices of three lawmakers -- Yury Nikolayev, Aleksandr Uarov, and Dmitry Savvin -- who are suspected of alleged bribe-taking.
The searches are being conducted while the Il Tumen deputies are holding a working session.
Nikolayev, the chief of the finances and taxes committee; Uarov, the chief of the parliamentary control committee; and Savvin, the chief of the committee for agriculture, are not present.
Sakha-Yakutia is Russia's largest region by territory but has a population of less than 1 million people, half of which are the region's indigenous Turkic-speaking Yakuts.
