A law on the controversial paramilitary force known as the White House guard has been prepared and will be submitted to the Supreme Soviet, deputy parliament speaker Sergei Filatov disclosed Monday.


He said that the law would regulate the duties of those members of the force deployed to guard the parliament building, or White House, and that the other members of the guard would be put under the auspices of the Security Ministry, the successor to the KGB.


Filatov did not specify when parliament would receive the bill on the guard, which is so shadowy that even its size is a matter of dispute. Recent reports on the guard have said it numbered 5, 000 men, but a spokesman for General Ivan Boiko, who heads the force, told The Moscow Times on Monday that it numbered only 3, 000.


"Don't worry about it", Filatov said when asked Monday about the apparent autonomy of the White House guard. He was speaking in parliament after a meeting of the Presidium, which sets the Supreme Soviet's agenda.


The paramilitary force at present is answerable only to Ruslan Khasbulatov, the parliament speaker. Headquartered at the White House and entrusted with special powers, it has been described as "Khasbulatov's private army".


The force became a public issue only last week after a shooting incident with a Moscow policeman that left one guard member dead and another seriously wounded. But in fact it has existed for a full year.


According to an investigation carried out by Izvestia, the force was set up in October 1991. A relevant document stamped "Not To Be Published" was signed by Filatov.


Boiko, a one-star general, heads a unit called the Directorate for the Highest State Organs of the Russian Federation that controls the guard.


"General Ivan Boiko takes orders only from Speaker Khasbulatov, or in rare cases, from his immediate deputies", Izvestia said in its report. "Boiko is not subordinate to Russia's interior minister, nor to the security minister, nor to the president himself for that matter".


Valery Golubev, deputy chief of the Interior Ministry's Directorate for the Defense of Public Order, confirmed that the special White House security troops had been created by a special decree from Khasbulatov.


"After the coup he decided to reconstruct the old Guards Department inside the White House", Golubev said. "The Interior Ministry signed a warrant for its staff officers to serve in the newly established directorate. They are under the speaker's personal control".


The force protects 75 key buildings in Moscow including the White House, the Ostankino television center, the Foreign Ministry, the Justice Ministry and the Public Prosecutor's office, according to Igor Nikulin, head of a parliamentary working group on security issues. Other sources told The Moscow Times that the force also guards the building at 10 Shchuseva Ulitsa where Khasbulatov has his apartment, and the residences and dachas of other top parliament officials.


The paramilitary force is so secretive that it refused to allow a photographer for The Moscow Times to take a picture of one of its men posted outside the White House on Monday.


According to Valery Chernikov, who heads the Interior Ministry's Directorate for Legal Support, the White House guard has "its own special functions that are different from the regular activity of police", although members of the force sometimes wear the same uniforms as the regular Moscow militia. They are armed with pistols and automatic rifles.


The White House guard were given the right to pass their weapons to members of parliament, the staff of the Presidium and top White House officials. This provision became known through a scandal that erupted when it was learned that a cousin of Khasbulatov had threatened a taxi driver with a gun that he obtained from the White House force.


"Sometimes people's deputies ask the Interior Ministry for temporary permission to wear pistols, mostly during trips to dangerous regions of the former Soviet Union", said Taras Karavansky, deputy chief of the directorate in charge of the guard. He said the Interior Ministry sent these requests on to his unit.


But according to Nikolai Bershutkin, head of the Interior Ministry's Directorate for the Defense of Public Order, only his department is authorized to issue weapons licenses.


"Not a single license has been issued for private use to date", he said, "and other documents concerning guns are illegal".