Moscow Times - 04.19.2001

 

The Moscow Times

Spain Refuses to Extradite Gusinsky  

By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer

A Spanish court ruled Wednesday not to extradite media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky to Russia where he is wanted on fraud charges.

By a vote of 2-1, the three-judge panel at the National Court in Madrid rejected the extradition request of the Prosecutor General's Office. The court said the offenses allegedly committed by Gusinsky would not qualify as a crime in Spain — the key criterion for deciding extradition cases there.

"The court agrees to reject and declare inadmissible the extradition of Vladimir Alexandrovich Gusinsky as requested by the authorities of the Russian Federation," the majority judges said in their 16-page ruling, according to The Associated Press.

The ruling can be appealed within three days before another panel of judges if the Spanish prosecutors choose to do so on behalf of the Russian authorities, Gusinsky's Spanish lawyer Domingo Plazas told AP.

Gusinsky was ordered to remain at his villa in the southern Spanish province of Cadiz pending the possible appeal and to continue reporting to police daily, Reuters cited court documents as saying.

Officials at the Prosecutor General's Office in Moscow said the possibility of extraditing Gusinsky to Russia still exists.

"We do not think this decision is a disaster. Not all legal possibilities have been exhausted," said Natalya Vishnyakova, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, Interfax reported.

Gusinsky, 48, is wanted in Russia on charges of large-scale fraud involving his Media-MOST empire. He and his supporters at Media-MOST have described the criminal cases against him as a politically motivated attack in retaliation for critical coverage of the Kremlin.

Gusinsky was arrested in Spain in December and has been under police guard at his villa for most of the time since then. Last month, shortly before the extradition hearings began, he was briefly placed behind bars before being released again on $5.5 million bail.

Back in Moscow, the Spanish court decision was regarded by Gusinsky's allies as a bittersweet victory. Media-MOST spokesman Dmitry Ostalsky praised the ruling as one made by "a truly independent court."

"At least we have received moral satisfaction," Ostalsky said.

Media-MOST is involved in a debt dispute with its main creditor and shareholder, Gazprom, which installed its management team at Media-MOST's flagship NTV television station earlier this month. The management reshuffle culminated in an early morning takeover Saturday.

Gusinsky's media empire took another hit this week as his former ally Dmitry Biryukov, the co-owner of Media-MOST's print-media arm, sided with Gazprom and closed Gusinsky's oldest media venture, the Segodnya daily newspaper, and a day later fired the editorial staff of the weekly Itogi magazine.

According to AP, the Spanish court cited a November 2000 agreement in which Media-MOST turned over shares in NTV to cover part of its outstanding debt with Gazprom and said the arrangement was "indicative of the existence of an economic conflict between the parties" and that such a dispute should be dealt with in civil proceedings, not criminal charges.

The judges also rejected Gusinsky's claims of political persecution in Russia but agreed there had been "questionable circumstances and peculiarities" in the way Russia had attempted to prosecute him, AP reported.

Ostalsky said it is too early to speak about Gusinsky's plans; first, Spanish prosecutors must decide whether to appeal Wednesday's ruling.

If there is no appeal, the international arrest warrant will be annulled, Ostalsky cited Gusinsky's lawyers as saying.

"If the prosecutors choose not to appeal within the three days, Vladimir Gusinsky will be a free citizen — but not in Russia, of course."

Ostalsky said the court ruling in Gusinsky's favor is unlikely to affect the situation surrounding NTV, since the media mogul will not be able to return to Russia and fight to "retrieve his property."

"Things have gone too far with NTV and the court ruling in his favor cannot directly affect the situation," Ostalsky said.

In an interview published Tuesday in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, Gusinsky said he is determined to keep on fighting in court to get his property back, but will lead the charge from abroad.

"Whatever happens, I will never come back to Putin's Russia," he said.