Opposition leader Savisaar says police took considerable amount of cash from his home

Leader of the opposition Center Party Edgar Savisaar, whom a court has suspended from the office of mayor of Tallinn pending the outcome of a corruption investigation, said officials of the Internal Security Service (ISS) found a considerable amount of cash during a search in his home at Hundisilma almost two weeks ago.

"What is ridiculous is that gifts for my 65th birthday, savings accumulated over several years and mostly withdrawn from bank, as well as, among other things, a baton given to me as a gift when I was minister of interior were taken away by the ISS," Savisaar said in his remarks to the city government-published newspaper, Pealinn.

Savisaar said the search at Hundisilma had a devastating effect on him.
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If you think that what happened at Hundisilma doesn't matter a lot to me, this is not so. 

“Home is as important to me as to every Estonian person. I felt dirty when that bunch of people left Hundisilma - it was just like when having had robbers in your home. 

Savisaar said of the search conducted on his farm situated some 65 kilometres from Tallinn. 

"The library was all turned upside down, my photo albums and photographs were taken. What else can you call it than a defilement of Hundisilma."

Savisaar said the ISS also took his computers and other devices.

"What I regret the most is the variants of the manuscript of the book 'Prime Minister.' 

“Funny, but they also took the manuscript of the piece of writing 'The Story of my Illness,' which was recently published in the newspaper Pealinn.”

Making light of the situation, the leader of the Centre Party said the ISS now also has the telephone numbers of girls he knows. "Why did they need them? 

“I can't get it. I hope they won't start calling and texting at night.” 

Savisaar said he is confident the prosecutor's office and the ISS will soon have to drop the allegations made against him. He feels the allegations are false and nobody takes them seriously.

"It looks like ISS blotched their job. What they left behind is a plundered home and indignant residents who by no means expected to see something like this in their village.”

The ISS on Sept. 22 conducted a search in the home of Savisaar as part of an investigation into alleged repeated accepting of bribes in 2014 and 2015 in assets and favours for himself as well as for a third party for the total value of several hundred thousand euros. 

Besides Savisaar, six persons were declared suspects in the proceeding.

On September 30, the Harju County court decided to remove Savisaar from the office of mayor for the duration of the pre-trial investigation.