Moscow Times - 08.27.2003

 

 

 

 

Moscow Times

Moscow Will Ask Greece for Gusinsky


By Simon Saradzhyan, Staff Writer

Ending four days of silence, the Prosecutor General's Office announced Tuesday that it was drawing up a request to extradite Vladimir Gusinsky from Greece.

"The preparation of documents for the extradition of V. Gusinsky has begun," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

It said prosecutors were considering the "feasibility" of sending to Athens several officials involved in its long-running investigation of the former media mogul.

The two-paragraph statement did not say when the extradition request might be sent, when investigators might be dispatched to Greece or what charges Gusinsky faces in Moscow.

A prosecutor's office official, however, said the charges are linked to the alleged embezzlement of a $250 million loan extended by Gazprom to Gusinsky's former Media-MOST empire in the 1990s. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that this is the same loan that led to the December 2002 conviction of Media-MOST chief financial officer Anton Titov on charges of defrauding Gazprom.

She said the team investigating Gusinsky is headed by Salavat Karimov -- the same person who is investigating Yukos chief financial officer Platon Lebedev on suspicion of stealing state property and previously headed high-profile cases into Titov and a number of Russian businessmen.

She would not say whether Karimov might travel to Greece personally.

She also refused to say when Moscow might send the extradition request to Greece, saying only that it "would be filed within the period of time outlined in the Greek-Russian extradition agreement."

The agreement stipulates that an extradition decision must be made within 30 days.

Gusinsky, 51, was detained Thursday at the Athens international airport on his arrival from Tev Aviv, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since fleeing Russia in 2000. 

News of his arrest broke Friday, but the Prosecutor General's Office waited until Tuesday to comment on the matter. In its statement, the prosecutor's office said Greece's official notification of Gusinsky's arrest was only translated into Russian on Tuesday. It also said prosecutors have yet to translate their extradition request and accompanying documents into Greek.

One of Gusinsky's lawyers was quoted by the Greek media as saying that he will ask the court to release Gusinsky on bail, pending a decision on extradition.

A Greek prosecutor decided Monday that it was beyond his jurisdiction to rule on whether to turn Gusinsky over to Russian law enforcement and ordered the businessman jailed until Greece's top court could consider the case. The hearing must be held within 30 days.

Gusinsky was detained during a passport check when border officials found his name in their computer database of wanted suspects. The officials contacted Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France, where they were told that Gusinsky is not on a wanted list, according to a source close to Gusinsky and Russian media reports. The officials then called the Russian bureau of Interpol and were told that Gusinsky was wanted.

Reached by telephone Tuesday, officials at Interpol's headquarters in Lyon and its Russian bureau declined to comment. Interpol, however, rejected a request from Russia for help in arresting Gusinsky in July 2001, saying the case was politically motivated. 

In April of that year, Spain turned down a request from Russia to extradite Gusinsky, who was living there after fleeing Moscow to escape what he called politically motivated prosecution over his media's critical reports of the Kremlin. Authorities denied that they were muzzling independent media, saying they instead were investigating financial wrongdoings at Media-MOST.

Gusinsky holds Russian and Israeli passports, and his supporters are expressing hope that Tel Aviv will intervene to prevent his extradition. But Israel might decide that it would be better to avoid a potential diplomatic dispute with Russia and not step in, an Israeli government source told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Some Russian newspapers are speculating that prosecutors might be trying to "settle scores" with Gusinsky, even though Gusinsky and Gazprom have made peace and he has given up most of his media empire.

Kommersant said prosecutors are upset that Gusinsky remains free despite their efforts and they want him brought home to stand trial. Their track record, however, is tarnished by unsuccessful attempts to extradite Russians in other politically charged cases -- including Chechen rebel envoy Akhmet Zakayev from Denmark -- and another failed effort to bring Gusinsky to Moscow would deal a stinging blow to their reputation, the newspaper said Tuesday.