The Prosecutor Digs in the Dirt
// Looking for Boris Berezovsky
The Berezovsky Case
Ivan Sydoruk announced yesterday that an international arrest warrant has been issued for president of the Civil Liberties Foundation Boris Berezovsky. The latest charge against him in absentia is the illegal appropriation of 14 hectares of land at the Zhukovka health center. Berezovsky told Kommersant that he obtained the land legally, by decree of Boris Yeltsin. “Let Putin pull him in for questioning, not me,” he suggested.
Kommersant wrote on August 30 about the plot of land belonging to Berezovsky's daughter Ekaterina that is now of interest to the regional prosecutor. On July 27, 1999, Pavel Borodin, then facilities director for the president of Russia, informed the administration of Krasnogorsk District in Moscow Region that he “agrees to the withdrawal of a lot of 14.254 hectares at fenced-in dacha #2 in the settlement of Petrovo-Dalnee and to its transfer to LogoVAZ, subject to payment.” In accordance with that letter, local administrator Boris Rasskazov drew up a deal between Krasnogorsk District and automaker LogoVAZ to sell the land for 100 rubles per square meter. LogoVAZ director Yuly Dubov acted on the behalf of the company. The lot was subsequently transferred to Ekaterina Berezovskaya.
In the summer of 2004, the regional prosecutor accused Rasskazov of exceeding his authority. On September 17, Berezovsky was named as a suspect in the case. He was accused of fraud taking advantage of his position as executive secretary of the CIS and, like Rasskazov, of exceeding his authority. On the same day, the regional prosecutor filed a petition for Berezovsky's arrest in Meshchansky District Court. A warrant was issued on September 21. The prosecutor did not observe the formality of informing the accused of the date of his trial. Berezovsky's lawyer, Semen Ariya is currently abroad on vacation and knew nothing about the matter. A young lawyer appeared in court in his place. Kommersant has information that the lawyer objected to the arrest order and plans to appeal to the Moscow City Court.
Regional Prosecutor Sydoruk said yesterday that Berezovsky, who lives in London, was evading investigation and that the international warrant was issued for that reason. Sydoruk did not mention that Berezovsky has been wanted internationally since November 2002. On October 30, 2002, a warrant was issued for his arrest on the accusation of fraudulently obtaining 2000 Zhiguli automobiles as part of a trial agreement made in 1995 between AvtoVAZ, LogoVAZ and the administration of Samara Region. His forgetfulness is understandable, since the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia lost a case in a London city court, which refused to extradite Berezovsky.
Berezovsky saw a political motive in this new charge. “In essence,” he told Kommersant, “they are calling President Boris Yeltsin into the prosecutor's office. In the mid-1990s, exclusive state properties that had belonged to Party bosses were being reallocated. Boris Yeltsin signed decrees for it. There was a presidential decree for this lot as well. The Prosecutor General's Ofice is well aware of that. The purchase of that lot was absolutely legal. Charges can be made only against President Yeltsin.”
When asked by Kommersant about the chances that Great Britain would deport him on this new charge, Berezovsky answered, “I cannot physically go to Russia, because an English court has officially determined that the Russian Federation violates human rights, that torture is used in the prisons, and so on. Therefore, the Russian prosecutor's office understands that they won't deport me no matter what charges they make. The reason why Putin called Yeltsin into the prosecutor's office is obvious. You remember that Yeltsin remained silent about Putin's activities for a long time. I wrote Boris Nikolaevich [Yeltsin] an open letter [which was published by Kommersant on September 14] and called his silence criminal. And Yeltsin answered Russian society in Moskovskie novosti [Yeltsin expressed his hope that “measures to strengthen the vertical of power will remain within the limits of democratic freedoms” in an interview with that newspaper on September 17]. He expressed himself in such a way that is was clear that he was rather alarmed by the people who have come to power today, and by Putin personally. Nonetheless, I think that the government is on the outs. That's partially why Putin considers Yeltsin very dangerous and brought him in for questioning.”
Viktor Khrekov, press secretary of presidential facilities director disassociated himself from the activities of that office under Borodin in a conversation with a Kommersant correspondent. “I understand,” he said, “that current facilities director Igor Kozhin was appointed in 2000. Law enforcement agencies will determine the degree of possible involvement of employees of this department. Our department works entirely on the return of state property that law enforcement agencies consider to have been illegally privatized.”
Kommersant will follow the development of these events.
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How the Prosecutor Has Tried to Get Berezovsky
On April 6, 1999, the Prosecutor General's Office obtained a warrant for the arrest of Boris Berezovsky in its Aeroflot case. He was accused of illegal business practices and money laundering. Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Mikhail Katyshev rescinded the arrest warrant on April 15. On April 25, Berezovsky returned to Russia from France to be questioned. On November 5, the Prosecutor General's Office retracted all accusations and Berezovsky became simply a witness in the case.
On November 1, 2000, Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily Kolmogorov stated that Berezovsky was to appear at the Prosecutor General's Office for questioning on November 15, during the course of which charges might be brought against him for embezzlement of state funds in the Aeroflot case. Berezovsky did not appear for questioning. Instead, he announced that he would not return to Russia. On November 25, 2000, prosecutor's investigator Aleksandr Filin announced that the questioning would be delayed “until a later time.”
In August 2001, the case of the Swiss company Forus Holding was split off from the Aerflot case. Berezovsky was sent a summons for questioning at the Prosecutor General's Office on September 19, which he did not appear for. On October 3, 2001, the Prosecutor General of Russia issued a resolution on the forced return of Berezovsky to Russia for questioning and threatened to charge him in absentia with money laundering and have him declared wanted internationally. On September 20, 2001, the Prosecutor General's Office declared Berezovsky wanted on the federal level. He was charged in absentia with abetting money laundering, not returning hard currency from outside the country and money laundering.
On August 6, 2002, the Prosecutor General's Office opened a case on the misappropriation of cars in a trial deal between LogoVAZ, AvtoVAZ and Samara Region in 1994 and 1995. On October 15, former head of LogoVAZ was charged in absentia with embezzlement on an especially large scale through fraud and was declared wanted internationally. On October 30, Basmanny Intermunicipal Court of Moscow issued a warrant for Berezovsky's arrest. The Prosecutor General's Office sent a request for Berezovsky's extradition through Interpol to Great Britain, where he was living. In December, a similar request was sent to the British Foreign Ministry. In March 2003, in response to those requests, British Foreign Minister David Blankett signed an order to initiate the extradition process. In March, Berezovsky was summoned to a police station to be charged and was then released on £100,000 bail. On April 2, at the first session of the London city court hearing the extradition case, it was announced that Blankett would not grant Berezovsky political asylum, which he had requested in 2002. But, on September 10, Blankett signed a decree granted Berezovsky political asylum. On September 12, 2003, the court refused the request from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office to extradite Berezovsky.
Ekaterina Zapodinskaya, Alek Akhundov
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 23, 2004
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