The first trial to accuse a high-ranking military official of corruption in the Western Group began Tuesday before the Supreme Court, bringing accusations of bribery and embezzlement against the general who led the 16th Russian Air Force in Germany.


Major General Nikolai Seliverstov, 49, the former first deputy commander of the 16th Russian Air Force, based in Germany until its withdrawal earlier this year, is accused by the military prosecutor's office of embezzling 64,100 Deutsche marks (about $40,000) and taking bribes totaling 20,000 marks.


The trial started just as Deputy Public Prosecutor Oleg Gaidanov announced that police had detained a suspect in the murder of Dmitry Kholodov, a reporter who had investigated the corruption charges.


Although the amount of money involved in the charges against Seliverstov was small, allegations of corruption against the Western Group of Forces have been at the center of public attention in the month since Kholodov was killed.


As the trial got underway, prosecutors were uncertain Seliverstov would get the maximum penalty. "Seliverstov can be put in jail for up to 15 years, but I doubt that will happen," said Colonel Alexander Pikhulya, a prosecutor at the trial.


Seliverstov, who had been detained in connection with the charges for eight months between 1993 and 1994, called his jail time and the entire trial itself "completely illegal."


"I want to stress that I am not guilty. The investigative bodies are trying to justify my imprisonment," he said. "I was made a scapegoat. There was an order from above."


Instead, Seliverstov blamed the army's woeful state for his problems. "We were involved in commercial business but it was not our matter," he said. "We were told the state does not have money for the army and, therefore, we had to earn it ourselves."


Seliverstov's lawyer, Ivan Matskevich, denied Russian media reports about "mass corruption" in the Western Group, indicating instead that the investigation into the group's alleged illegal dealings in real estate, military supplies and weapons had political overtones.


"I think someone is following political goals in order to have more influence in the army," Matskevich said without elaborating. "All the evidence presented by the investigating bodies is contradictionary."


Moskovsky Komsomolets reporter Kholodov was writing about that investigation when a briefcase -- allegedly containing compromising documents about the leaders of the Western Group -- exploded in his office, killing him instantly.


The murder set off a howl of accusations, most of them leveled at the Deputy Defense Minister Matvei Burlakov, the leader of the Western Group, and Defense Minister Pavel Grachev. President Boris Yeltsin removed Burlakov from office in connection with investigations into the Western Group.


Gaidanov, the Russian prosecutor, told a roundtable of journalists that investigators had found evidence that the October murder "was related to his professional duties, and tied to material he was about to publish." Kholodov had also been due to testify before a Duma panel on corruption in the Western Group days after he was killed.


Gaidanov's statement is the first official confirmation of a link between army corruption and the murder. He remained vague on the details but did say Kholodov had told his parents he was about to publish damning material. Gaidanov added that the bomb that killed the reporter was of a type widely used in the army.


He declined to give any details about the suspect on the ground that he had not been formally accused. The official added that 15 civil and four military investigators had interrogated over 250 individuals, including military and counterintelligence officials.


In court Tuesday, Seliverstov's indictment said he took a bribe of 20,000 Deutsche marks from a German organization called the New Apostle Church, which wanted him to fly 20 tons of church goods to Tselinograd, a northern Kazakh city.


He also embezzled 35,000 marks from the same organization to organize an unofficial flight to ship eight more tons, and embezzled 29,100 marks from a German businessman who planned to use Russian military airfields for air and car shows in 1992, according to the prosecution.


Seliverstov said he had not received the money and, in turn, he accused German church heads and the businessman of embezzlement.


"All in all, I signed 30 commercial agreements in Germany and as a result made 1.5 million marks for the Western Group," he said, adding that business activity for leaders of military units had been permitted by the Defense Ministry in 1991.


Matskevich said many of the commercial agreements between the army and German organizations and companies were superficial and badly compiled because generals had been "poor" businessmen.


"I am sure it is not the army's deal to make money but they had to do it," he said.