President Boris Yeltsin suspended Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov on Friday, a day after Skuratov approved new searches in a probe into alleged Kremlin corruption and sent Yeltsin a report about Russian capital believed to have been illegally stashed in Swiss banks.
The attempt to get rid of Skuratov - Yeltsin's second such effort - provoked an outburst from the opposition, who said the president was covering up wrongdoing in his own inner circle.
But Yeltsin's aides said it was Skuratov who was under suspicion as a result of a videotape of him cavorting in bed with two alleged prostitutes.
"When it comes to the morals of the prosecutor general, such things cease to be his private life," Kremlin Deputy Chief of Staff Oleg Sysuyev was quoted as saying by Interfax.
The Kremlin has formed a commission to look into the videotape, and the prosecutor's office of the city of Moscow has opened a criminal investigation of Skuratov over the matter.
Citing that criminal investigation, Yeltsin's order temporarily suspends Skuratov. The president also sent a letter to the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, which has the final say, asking that it remove Skuratov permanently.
Early Friday morning, Skuratov's government telephone was already cut off and his bodyguard withdrawn, Russian news agencies reported. His office was sealed, and his press office said his top deputy, Yury Chaika, was serving as acting prosecutor.
Skuratov said the suspension was "totally illegal."
"This whole thing is rigged and completely obvious," Interfax quoted him as saying.
Yeltsin's Communist opponents said Yeltsin was motivated by fears that Skuratov would find corruption in the Kremlin. The prosecutor has said he is probing possible bribery and wrongdoing involving the Kremlin's dealings with Mabetex, a Swiss construction firm that has worked on the renovation of government buildings in Moscow.
Skuratov met last month outside Moscow with Carla Del Ponte, Switzerland's top prosecutor, to discuss the Mabetex probe and other investigations. His office also took documents Thursday from several Moscow offices of Mabetex.
"This is the real reason for firing Skuratov," said State Duma Deputy Viktor Ilyukhin, a leader of the no-compromise wing of the Communists. "Yeltsin is openly defending mafia and has become dangerous for Russia."
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said the move was "another confirmation that [Yeltsin] cannot conduct a war on corruption and banditry and that he is himself a malicious lawbreaker."
Zyuganov said that Yeltsin has been given a list of approximately 20 names of people who between them have $40 billion stashed in Switzerland. Skuratov said Friday, however, that his letter had not designated specific names.
The State Duma, parliament's lower house, approved a resolution calling Skuratov's dismissal unconstitutional and appealing to the Federation Council not to approve it.
The Federation Council has already rebuffed Yeltsin once by refusing, with a vote of 142 to 6, to fire Skuratov on March 17. Hours after that vote, the Skuratov sex tape appeared on RTR national television. Politicians across the spectrum decried the showing of the tape as a Kremlin dirty trick.
More sleaze came from RTR on Friday as it broadcast a short interview with a woman the announcer said was one of the prostitutes. The woman, whose face was obscured by RTR, said she had been paid $500 and described Skuratov only as "a man I hadn't seen before."
Vladimir Putin, director of the Federal Security Service, said Friday that investigators had evidence the prostitutes were paid for by people under investigation by Skuratov's office.
Yeltsin, whose political standing has fallen sharply in the wake of the August financial collapse, decided to suspend Skuratov instead of outright sacking him in order to avoid another potential confrontation with the Federation Council, said political analyst Yevgeny Volk, head of the Moscow office of the Heritage Foundation.
"When [Skuratov] is not dismissed but just temporarily suspended from his duties, it does not imply immediate action by the Federation Council," said Volk, citing Article 42 of the law on the prosecutor general.
"The idea is to prevent Skuratov from making any further revelations of corruption and bribery in the upper echelons of power," said Volk. "This investigation [into Skuratov by the Moscow prosecutor] can last for a very long time. Skuratov will be in between - he is not dismissed, but he is not in office."
Skuratov expressed confusion early in the day about who could have launched a criminal case against him, since there was none from his office.
Interfax reported that it was started by the Moscow prosecutor's office. Yeltsin, in need of political allies, has recently patched up his rocky relationship with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, meeting Luzhkov last week for the first time in more than a year.