Only hours after the former Soviet president returned from a trip abroad, Valery Zorkin told a press conference broadcast live on Russian state television that if Gorbachev intended to remain a citizen of his own country, he must abide by the Russian Constitution.
"Gorbachev has demonstrated that he is not a citizen of Russia, but of Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and South-Korea", Zorkin said. "Let him live like a citizen of the world. But let him not forget that he has then to bid farewell to the rights of a Russian citizen".
Zorkin's remarks were aired shortly after Gorbachev returned from Germany, where he had attended Saturday's funeral of Willy Brandt, the former West German chancellor.
This was the former Soviet president's first trip out of the country since the government slapped a travel ban on him Oct. 1 for his refusal to testify at the Constitutional Court's hearings on the legality of the Communist Party.
Speaking to a small group of reporters gathered at the airport, Gorbachev repeated firmly that he would not appear in court, and accused the Russian government of waging a "Vendetta" against him.
"This is a vendetta, and they want to put Gorbachev in his place", he said. "The Russian government wants to make up for its lack of foreign and domestic policies with sensationalism".
He was referring to the publication Friday of a second set of documents to show that he covered up the World War II Katyn massacre, as well as allegations that his research institute had concealed profits and withheld taxes.
"What kind of scenario is this, what kind of circus? " he said. "This government and president, with their lack of confidence, don't know what to do, so they need a scapegoat".
He dismissed a 1990 secret memorandum revealed by a Yeltsin spokesman on Friday that bears his signature and contains details on the Katyn massacre, in which 25, 000 Poles were killed by Soviet security forces in 1940 The memo, Gorbachev said, contained information that allowed him to approve the Soviet government's admission of guilt in the massacre, which it did two months after the memo was dated.
"Everything I said before was true", he said. Last week, he said that he had learned the full scale of the massacre only in December 1991, as he prepared to hand the documents over to Yeltsin "The arrival of the files was a total surprise".
He also said that the financial accounts of his institute, the Gorbachev Foundation, were in order, and that its budget would be made public shortly "to clear up any questions".
Despite his soured relations with the court, Gorbachev said that his offer to meet privately with the judges to discuss any questions relating to the case was still good.
As his press conference, Zorkin criticized Western governments for their support for the former president, and said that Gorbachev had damaged "the Constitutional Court, Russia, but most of all himself, especially as a politician.
"He would have to testify if this were another country", he said "If the former general secretary does not want to live by our laws, what did he do when he was president? "
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