Scene of the attack on deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia Andrey Kozlov, 3 Oleny Val St. His bodyguard was killed and Kozlov was taken to Hospital No. 33.
Photo: Valery Melnikov
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First Deputy Chairman of Central Bank Shot
// Andrey Kozlov receives head wound in attack
Andrey Kozlov, deputy chairman of the management board of the Central Bank of Russia was attacked in Moscow late yesterday evening. He and his driver/bodyguard were shot after a soccer game in which Kozlov participated. Kozlov was wounded in the head and is now in a coma.
Andrey Kozlov was playing soccer last night with the Central Bank soccer team in the enclosed Spartak arena on Oleny Val St. The game ended around 9:00. Fifteen minutes later, Kozlov, who was accompanied by his driver/bodyguard, left the steambath and was walking toward the arena's exit, where his company car was waiting for him, when two unknown persons opened gunfire on him. His bodyguard was struck in the head and killed by the first bullet fired as he tried to cover his employer. Team members took Kozlov to nearby Hospital No. 33, where he was immediately operated on. At press time, Kozlov was alive, but doctors say that his condition is critical. “The victim was brought in with a gunshot wound to the head,” Kommersant was told at the admissions desk of the hospital. “He has spent an hour on the operating table, but surgeons have been unable to remove the bullet. A car was sent for the head doctor of the hospital's surgery department. He should arrive at any minute to head the operating team. The wound is very serious, the patient is in a coma, and so we cannot make any prognoses.”
The investigation at the scene of the crime is being led by Moscow Prosecutor Yury Semin. After question team members and arena workers, warrants has been issued for two suspects and the entirety of the Moscow police force has been involved in the manhunt. Sources on the investigation say that domestic as well as professional causes will be examined as motives.
The few Central Bank staffers who were reachable by telephone last night were unaware of the attack on Kozlov and declined to comment on it. Kommersant was able to learn that the members of the Bank's board of directors were informed of the situation. Central Bank representatives aid nothing about possible suspects. “There are too many banks and the circle may be much wider than the banking community,” commented one banker. “All the more so since he had enough people who were ill-disposed toward him.”
Kozlov was responsible for banking supervision, one of the most conflict-ridden activities at the Central Bank, and was considered a proponent of harsh measures. In particular, he is closely associated with the passage of the law “On Deposit Insurance.” The Central Bank has also been revoking the licenses of bank that do not follow the law “On Countermeasures to the Legalization of Criminal Income.” Licenses were taken away from Neftyanoi Bank, Sodbiznesbank, Credittrust, the Federal Reserve Bank and AsiaUniversalBank for that reason.
Banking sources say that Kozlov's activities had no less effect on illegal importers. They point out that the majority of banking licenses revoked recently were related to clients' cashless transactions, that is, improper payments in schemes to minimize customs and VAT payments.
One of the latest proposals by Kozlov was a lifelong ban on professional activities for bankers involved in economic crimes (tax evasion and money laundering). He presented that idea in Sochi last week.
President of the Russian Banks Association Garegin Tosunyan told Kommersant, “I can't find the words to describe the people who would do that… Supervisory work will always rub someone the wrong way. Andrey Andreevich [Kozlov] was a person with vast power of knowledge and professionalism. He was the one who was building a Russian banking system of a qualitatively new level.” Alexander Murychev, president of the Russia Association of Regional Banks said, “I don't want to think that the attack was connected with his professional activity but, unfortunately, I can't imagine any other scenario.”
Deputy general director of Russian Aluminum and former finance minister Alexander Livshits told Kommersant, commenting on the attack on Kozlov, “I am simply stunned. They hadn't shot at us, in the Finance Ministry and Central Bank, yet.” Livshits is mistaken, however. In 1997, shots were fired through a window at head of the Central Bank at that time Sergey Dubinin and, at the same time, first deputy finance minister Andrey Vavilov's car was blown up.
Killing Andrey Kozlov is the barefaced challenge to authorities, said RAO UES CEO Anatoly Chubais, emphasizing the response of authorities should be tough, immediate and ruthless. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov attributed the murder to professional activities of Kozlov.
The attack on CBR Deputy Chairman Andrey Kozlov could have been arranged by “bandits working in the banks, which licenses he had recalled,” said State Duma’s Speaker Boris Gryzlov.
Gryzlov never doubts that killing Kozlov roots in his professional activities. “Kozlov’s supervision of the bank sphere was effective,” the speaker said, pointing out the licenses of some unfair financial structures had been withdrawn recently.
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According to latest data, Kozlov died past night, never regaining the consciousness.
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Russia’s Prosecutor General Yury Chaika will supervise investigation of the murder.
The place of the crime has been examined. Spokesmen of Prosecutor General Office have declined to make other comments on the crime.
Sergey Perekhodov
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 14, 2006
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