Russian Deputy Prosecutor General and head of the prosecutor's investigative committee Alexander Bastrykin
Photo: Yevgeny Pavlenko
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Berezovsky under Trail in Holland
Russian Deputy Prosecutor General and head of the prosecutor's investigative committee Alexander Bastrykin told journalists yesterday that Dutch tax authorities have initiated a criminal case against Russian political emigrant Boris Berezovsky for money laundering. Bastrykin said that Dutch tax police had come to Moscow, but he declined to give any details about their visit.
Bastrykin recalled that the Basmanny Court in Moscow issued a sixth arrest warrant for Berezovsky earlier this month for embezzling $13 million from SBS Agro bank as credit in 1997. He said an investigative group from the prosecutor's office is planning to travel to France, where Berezovsky owns a villa that the Basmanny Court has authorized for seizure. Furthermore, a case against Berezovsky for “embezzlement of monetary funds from [automaker] AvtoVAZ, exchanging special forces troops taken prisoner on the Dagestani-Chechen border and legalizing illegally obtained monetary funds” will be handed over to the court in October.
Berezovsky's lawyer Semen Ariya declined to comment on the investigative committee's announcement yesterday “until additional information is received.” Berezovsky told Kommersant by telephone that “I have no business in Holland and I received no credit from SBA Agro bank. The question of the exchange of the 21 special forces troops from Penza in 1997 is more serious. I was following the instructions of Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, since the interior minister at the time, Kulikov, could not free his own people. I went to Chechnya, and just as I got there, employees of the International Red Cross were murdered, that is, the situation was very tense. I got an agreement – I don't remember exactly through whom, I think it was Akhmed Zakaev – to a meeting with Raduev. I flew to some village in a military helicopter accompanied only by a representative of the Security Council, and we were met by the Chechens with a whole cavalcade of jeeps, Mercedes and Volvos. As a result of the negotiations, Raduev first released 11 troops, and then 10 more the same day. Thus, 21 people in all were saved. I received the gratitude of Yeltsin, Ivan Rybkin [then secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation] and Interior Minister Kulikov.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 29, 2007
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