Mikhail Kasyanov insists that while in government service, he never owned a company or bought the Sosnovka-1 state dacha.
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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Dacha Scandal
// Mikhail Kasyanov suspected of illegal privatization
The Case of the Former Prime Minister
As Kommersant already reported in yesterday's edition, the Prosecutor General's Office has initiated a criminal case in the privatization of the Sosnovka-1 and Sosnovka-3 state dachas in Troitsa-Lykova on the outskirts of Moscow. According to the prosecutor's office, the case was opened at the request of Aleksandr Khinshtein, a State Duma deputy and columnist for the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK). He informed the prosecutor's office that the first of these dachas on 11 ha of land were allegedly in the illegal possession of former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, while a company founded by Alfa Group President Mikhail Fridman bought Sosnovka-3 on 6 ha of land with Kasyanov's help. The Prosecutor General's Office made it clear the case was not initiated against Kasyanov, but only to check the deputy's request. However, it is worth noting that the case was initiated on July 1, but the Prosecutor General's Office made an official announcement regarding it only after the former prime minister, who has sharply criticized the Russian government's policy in recent months, had already left on vacation abroad.
In his request to the Prosecutor General's Office, deputy and journalist Aleksandr Khinshtein stated that on January 22, 2003, then Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed a government order transferring Sosnovka-1 (the former residence of Mikhail Suslov) and Sosnovka-3 (it was once assigned to Konstantin Chernenko) to the Ministry of State Property (MGI) for subsequent assignment to a federal state unitary enterprise (FGUP) under his jurisdiction. MGI transferred the dachas to FGUP VPK-Invest and shortly after allowed them to be sold at auction, where VPK Invest was the operator.
Khinshtein alleged that notice of the auction sale for Sosnovka-1 was published only in the magazine Zhilye i Reformy, which had only a limited circulation. The auction participants were three limited liability companies (OOO) – Art Group, Amelia, and Krestar Invest. The first two had the same legal address on Profsoyuznaya Street, which was also the address of OOO Nazap, the founder of the third company. Amelia won the auction with an offer of only 11 million rubles for a state dacha in one of Moscow's most prestigious districts. On its behalf, auction loser OOO Art Group concluded an agreement with MGI for assignation of land rental rights (since selling land in Moscow is prohibited), for which it paid another $720,000.
Khinshtein considers the, primary document establishing Kasyanov's guilt in dishonest privatization of property in Troitsa-Lykova (with an assessed market value of $150 million) to be a notice from the Moscow Registration Chamber that Kasyanov and his wife Irina are the presently the promoters of OOO Art Group, which received 11 ha of land under long-lease. However, the deputy does not have information on whether the Kasyanovs were the company's promoters at the time of the auction sale. And immediately after the publication of Khinshtein's article on the privatization of Sosnovka-1 and Sosnovka-3, An Ascetic with a View of the Kremlin, in MK, Kasyanov said that during his time in government service he had not owned any shares or stakes in commercial firms.
According to Khinshtein's information, a company called Veltex won the auction for the sale of Sosnovka-3, paying 10.1 million rubles for the dacha located on 6 ha of land. In his article, Khinshtein did not name the promoter of this company, saying only that he was a “well known oligarch”. However, in interviews in Argumenty i Fakty and on Radio Svoboda, Khinshtein admitted that he had meant Mikhail Fridman. He put forward the following theory in his request: a company affiliated with Fridman bought Sosnovka-1 with money allegedly borrowed from the oligarch's bank and then settled the credit with the bank with its unsecured bills. That is, according to Khinshtein's theory, which is not supported in any way, the money for the purchase of Sosnovka-1 was a sort of bribe for the opportunity to buy Sosnovka-3 cheap. Alfa Bank Vice President Aleksandr Gafin told Kommersant yesterday that he was not well informed of any dacha business since he was on holiday in Italy.
The Prosecutor General's Office did not initiate a criminal case for abuses Kasyanov committed while prime minister, as Khinshtein asked, but on the basis of Article 165, Part 3 of the RF Criminal Code (causing especially large material losses to a property owner through fraud or abuse of trust without evidence of theft). The prosecutor's office confirmed that it was planning to check the legality of the auctions for the sale of both dachas, as well as the legality of the long-term land rental agreements. However, yesterday evening, the office's department of information and public relations reported that, on the basis of a check of Khinshtein's request, a criminal case had been brought against Ramil Gaisin, the general manager of FGUP VPK-Invest.
Khinshtein, who is now away on business in Kyrgyzstan, informed Kommersant that he was prepared to participate in any investigation of this case and would be satisfied when Kasyanov was behind bars or at least given a suspended sentence.
Yesterday, Khinshtein supported Oleg Mitvol, the deputy head of the Natural Resources Supervisory Agency (Rosprirodnadzor), who said that his agency had initiated a check of the observance of conservation laws at Sosnovka-1. “I would have bought 11 ha of land worth $150 million for only 11 million rubles, that is, for the price of a three-room apartment in Mitino,” Mitvol noted sarcastically, adding that Rosprirodnadzor was now checking a dacha property in the village of Usovo (Odintsov District, Moscow Region) that also had a connection with Kasyanov.
It is notable that Khinshtein's first article, An Ascetic with a View of the Kremlin, was published on July 4 with a request to consider it as a deputy's official inquiry and grounds for initiating a criminal case. The Prosecutor General's Office acknowledged yesterday that it had already initiated the criminal case on July 1. A source in the prosecutor's office first reported this on July 10, only after detailed items incriminating the former prime minister were shown on Saturday on the program Vesti on the Rossiya channel and on Sunday on the news summary Vremya on Pervy Kanal. And the office officially declared the existence of a criminal case only yesterday. We note that by that time, Kasyanov was out of the country on holiday. This led some observers to assume that this is the authorities' way of dropping hints to Kasyanov, who has recently been sharply critical of the policy of the present government and President Vladimir Putin and has started contending for the leadership of a the right opposition, that they don't want him to come back.
In fact, the scandal that broke out did not force Kasyanov to interrupt his vacation. Yesterday, Tatyana Rasbash, Kasyanov's press secretary, only repeated his previous statement that he conducted business activities in strict compliance with current legislation, but he considered the country's current political course wrong and damaging to the country's future.
However, according to Kommersant's information, Kasyanov is planning to return to the country on July 25.
Kommersant will be following the development of events.
Ekaterina Zapodinskaia
All the Article in Russian as of July 12, 2005
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