A close associate of the detained lawyer Dmitry Yakubovsky, who was arrested last month by St. Petersburg police on suspicion of theft, said Tuesday that his case had nothing to do with crime, but was part of a continuing power struggle between two powerful political groups.


Andrei Karaulov, a producer and anchor of the popular political program "A Moment of Truth," told a press conference that he had carried out his own investigation to find out the real motives of Yakubovsky's arrest.


"The detention is the continuation of the war declared by Korzhakov against Luzhkov," Karaulov said, referring to Alexander Korzhakov, head of the presidential bodyguard, and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.


Karaulov said Yakubovsky worked as a legal consultant to MOST-Bank and Stolichny Bank, both of which had close ties with Luzhkov.


He said Korzhakov and his allies were concerned about the President Boris Yeltsin's health and were casting around for possible successors. "And Luzhkov is not their man," he said, adding that Korzhakov's next target would be the mayor's office or Luzhkov himself.


"The war declared by Korzhakov against Luzhkov started on the day of attack of the MOST-Bank building," Karaulov said, in a reference to an incident Dec. 2 when a group of armed men, later identified as members of Korzhakov's guard, surrounded a building in central Moscow and beat a number of MOST-Bank employees.


Spokesmen for the presidential bodyguard and the Interior Ministry refused to comment on the allegations.


Yakubovsky was appointed in 1993 by Yeltsin to investigate corruption in the upper echelons of power. As a result, Viktor Barannikov, a security minister, was dismissed. Yakubovsky then fled the country, returning months later to start a private practice.