TALLINN - The official ruling in this former Soviet Baltic republic is in: Vladimir Lenin is guilty of economic fraud.
Many would hasten to agree about the demerits of the legendary communist revolutionary. It's just that the verdict in this particular case, handed down by an Estonian judge on Thursday evening, has nothing to do with him.
The Vladimir Lenin in question is a 35-year-old Estonian resident - convicted by a district court of setting up a phony oil firm to fraudulently claim 14 million kroons (dlrs 825,000) in government tax rebates, officials said.
A judge gave Lenin, an ethnic Russian living in this small Baltic Sea coastal nation, a two-year suspended sentence and ordered he repay the state some 4 million kroons (dlrs 235,000), police spokesman Haino Kurman said.
He said Lenin was the convicted felon's real name, not a nickname. Estonia's Lenin even shares the same middle initial as the Soviet founder, "I," the official explained, though his stands for Ivan instead of Ilyich.
The suspect went into hiding in 1999 after he was indicted but was arrested in Estonia's capital three months ago. /The Associated Press/