Swiss order arrest of Kremlin aide for money-laundering
DAVOS: Swiss authorities investigating a Russian money-laundering affair
have issued an international arrest warrant for former top Kremlin official
Pavel Borodin, a Swiss magistrate said.
The arrest warrant for Borodin, who was a key aide to Boris Yeltsin before
the former Russian president resigned last month unexpectedly, has already
been sent to the Interpol police network, the magistrate told Reuters
Thursday, declining to be named.
The bold and diplomatically unusual Swiss move is the first of its kind
against a serving Russian politician and an unprecedented accusation aimed
at an official who was at the heart of the Kremlin.
The charges are part of an investigation by Geneva's judicial authorities
into alleged kickbacks paid to Russian government officials by Swiss-based
construction firm Mabetex. The Kremlin and Mabetex have denied any
wrongdoing in the affair, in which a number of Swiss accounts have been
frozen.
In Moscow, Borodin's spokesman said the Kremlin's ex-property chief had had
no word from Swiss authorities about an arrest warrant for him and knew
about it only from media reports. The Swiss magistrate told Reuters that
international arrest warrants were likely to be issued for two more suspects
soon.
The arrest warrant is the first to be issued in the Swiss investigation into
the multi-million-dollar web of Russian financial dealings and alleged
corruption. It underscores investigators' suspicions that Switzerland may
have played a central role in capital flight and potentially high-level
corruption and embezzlement in Russia.
The Swiss move could have political implications for Russsia as well as the
US, where the suspected diversion of massive western aid to Moscow has been
a key issue in the presidential primaries ahead of November elections.
The Swiss magistrate said Geneva's chief prosecutor Bernard Bertossa issued
the warrant recently for Borodin, who presided over the kremlin's vast
property empire of hotels, resorts, dachas and real estate worth hundreds of
millions of dollars. ``I can confirm that the chief prosecutor, Bertossa,
has issued an international arrest warrant for Borodin,'' said the
magistrate. ``The warrant is for money-laundering.''
swiss federal police sources said that once such a warrant is issued, the
suspect could not travel to the West without running the risk of being
arrested and extradited to SWitzerland.
Russia's acting president Vladimir Putin ousted Borodin from the Kremlin
administration in a reshuffle earlier this month. Putin demoted Borodin to a
figurehead position in the Russian government as state secretary of the
Russia-Belarus Union that Moscow established with the former Soviet
republic.
Swiss prosecutors have accused him of taking bribes from the Swiss company
Mabetex in return for giving the firm lucrative contracts to renovate
government buildings, including the Kremlin, charges Borodin has previously
denied.
Separately, Swiss authorities are also investigating Swiss connections in an
alleged money-laundering scandal involving the Bank of New York. They are
assisting US investigators in the affair, in which two people have already
been indicted in the US. (Reuters)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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