Russian prosecutors on Tuesday accused Vladimir Gusinsky of laundering nearly $100 million and said they wanted a new international arrest warrant for him, despite failing to extradite him from Spain on other charges.
Gusinsky's spokesman dismissed the new charges as another twist in a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to silence a vocal critic. "They have such a rich imagination at the prosecutor's office. Every time they issue a new charge against Gusinsky they come up with a new and bigger figure," Dmitry Ostalsky said.
Leonid Troshin, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, said Gusinsky was charged with laundering 2.8 billion rubles ($97 million), connected with loans received from state-dominated gas giant Gazprom.
He said prosecutors had already notified Interpol that they were seeking a new international arrest warrant against Gusinsky after widening the charges against him.
Gusinsky left Spain on Monday night for Gibraltar and flew to Israel on Tuesday, said Gusinsky's Spanish lawyer Domingo Plazas.
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Gusinsky has Israeli and Russian citizenship.
Plazas said Spanish police on Tuesday searched Gusinsky's villa in the -resort of Sotogrande, which is near the tiny British colony of Gibraltar on the southern tip of Spain.
"It could be that there is a new arrest warrant out there from Russia," Plazas said. "I have received nothing."
Ostalsky said the Russian Criminal Code does not even have a statute regarding money laundering.
"I think this is a very desperate attempt by the prosecutor's office to save face. ?€¦ It looks like they just picked something that is very fashionable to talk about in the West," Ostalsky said.
Russia at first accused Gusinsky of misrepresenting the assets of his Media-MOST holding company to obtain a $262 million loan from Gazprom, the state-controlled natural gas monopoly.
But Spain's High Court last week refused Russia's request to extradite Gusinsky to face those charges, saying Russia's grounds for the case would not amount to a crime in Spain. On Monday, it lifted all travel restrictions on him.
The new charges against Gusinsky were leveled Sunday, said Yury Vasilchenko of the Prosecutor General's Office. He refused to give any further details of the charges, but voiced confidence that they would make the Spanish court change its mind.
"The charges are backed by strong evidence and we expect that Gusinsky will be extradited," Vasilchenko said.
After word of the new charges came late Monday, Gusinsky's lawyers issued a statement dismissing them as being "completely fictitious" and part of a government campaign to plunder Gusinsky's crumbling Media-MOST empire and other independent media in Russia.
"I think that the political motive behind the [new] charges is more than clear," Ostalsky said Tuesday.
Gusinsky has accused President Vladimir Putin of waging a vendetta against him and of being behind Gazprom's takeover of his NTV television channel earlier this month.
Also, publication of the Segodnya newspaper was suspended and the staff of the weekly news magazine Itogi was dismissed.
Gusinsky's Media-MOST held minority shares in both publications, with the majority held by Gazprom and the owner of the company that published them.
Gazprom says the NTV takeover and the publication changes were motivated only by financial considerations.
Another part of Gusinsky's media empire, Ekho Moskvy radio, also has feared a takeover by Gazprom. Its staff is currently negotiating the purchase of a controlling interest in the station to prevent Gazprom from taking control, Interfax reported Tuesday.
(Reuters, AP)
Gusinsky's spokesman dismissed the new charges as another twist in a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to silence a vocal critic. "They have such a rich imagination at the prosecutor's office. Every time they issue a new charge against Gusinsky they come up with a new and bigger figure," Dmitry Ostalsky said.
Leonid Troshin, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, said Gusinsky was charged with laundering 2.8 billion rubles ($97 million), connected with loans received from state-dominated gas giant Gazprom.
He said prosecutors had already notified Interpol that they were seeking a new international arrest warrant against Gusinsky after widening the charges against him.
Gusinsky left Spain on Monday night for Gibraltar and flew to Israel on Tuesday, said Gusinsky's Spanish lawyer Domingo Plazas.
Gusinsky has Israeli and Russian citizenship.
Plazas said Spanish police on Tuesday searched Gusinsky's villa in the -resort of Sotogrande, which is near the tiny British colony of Gibraltar on the southern tip of Spain.
"It could be that there is a new arrest warrant out there from Russia," Plazas said. "I have received nothing."
Ostalsky said the Russian Criminal Code does not even have a statute regarding money laundering.
"I think this is a very desperate attempt by the prosecutor's office to save face. ?€¦ It looks like they just picked something that is very fashionable to talk about in the West," Ostalsky said.
Russia at first accused Gusinsky of misrepresenting the assets of his Media-MOST holding company to obtain a $262 million loan from Gazprom, the state-controlled natural gas monopoly.
But Spain's High Court last week refused Russia's request to extradite Gusinsky to face those charges, saying Russia's grounds for the case would not amount to a crime in Spain. On Monday, it lifted all travel restrictions on him.
The new charges against Gusinsky were leveled Sunday, said Yury Vasilchenko of the Prosecutor General's Office. He refused to give any further details of the charges, but voiced confidence that they would make the Spanish court change its mind.
"The charges are backed by strong evidence and we expect that Gusinsky will be extradited," Vasilchenko said.
After word of the new charges came late Monday, Gusinsky's lawyers issued a statement dismissing them as being "completely fictitious" and part of a government campaign to plunder Gusinsky's crumbling Media-MOST empire and other independent media in Russia.
"I think that the political motive behind the [new] charges is more than clear," Ostalsky said Tuesday.
Gusinsky has accused President Vladimir Putin of waging a vendetta against him and of being behind Gazprom's takeover of his NTV television channel earlier this month.
Also, publication of the Segodnya newspaper was suspended and the staff of the weekly news magazine Itogi was dismissed.
Gusinsky's Media-MOST held minority shares in both publications, with the majority held by Gazprom and the owner of the company that published them.
Gazprom says the NTV takeover and the publication changes were motivated only by financial considerations.
Another part of Gusinsky's media empire, Ekho Moskvy radio, also has feared a takeover by Gazprom. Its staff is currently negotiating the purchase of a controlling interest in the station to prevent Gazprom from taking control, Interfax reported Tuesday.
(Reuters, AP)