← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 9241 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-08-23
2003-08-23 19:08 | User Profile
From Agence France-Presse, available online at: [url=http://asia.news.yahoo.com/030823/afp/030823161159int.html]http://asia.news.yahoo.com/030823/afp/0308...3161159int.html[/url]
Russian tycoon Gusinsky arrested in Greece
August 24, 2003
ATHENS (AFP) - Former Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, wanted by Moscow for alleged multi-million dollar (euro) fraud, was arrested at Athens airport on an international arrest warrant, police said.
Gusinsky, 50, is the former owner of the popular NTV television network, renowned for running stories highly critical of President Vladimir Putin's policies, especially his drive to suppress rebels in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
Gusinsky, who possesses dual Russian and Israeli nationality, arrived in Athens on a flight from Tel Aviv and was arrested at Athens airport Saturday on an international warrant issued by Interpol.
Police said he was wanted by Moscow for allegedly swindling the Russian state out of 250 million dollars. He is also accused of fraudulent privatisation and money laundering.
Gusinsky was to appear before a public prosecutor in the Greek capital on Monday, ANA news agency reported.
His arrest comes after Russia's state-controlled gas giant Gazprom took control of NTV in 2001.
At the time, Washington and European capitals expressed concern about the future of freedom of expression in Russia.
Russian officials have denied accusations that the takeover was a clampdown on media freedom, insisting it was largely a result of the financial problems of Gusinsky's group Media-Most.
The group, which was lent hundreds of millions of dollars by Gazprom, ran into difficulties after the 1998 financial meltdown in Russia.
Gusinsky had become one of the Kremlin's most vilified oligarchs, along with the likewise self-exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky, an ally of former president Boris Yeltsin who fell out with his successor Putin.
Putin has moved to stifle the influence of the super-rich business barons and regional strongmen who had dominated the country under Yeltsin's faltering rule.
As well as NTV, Media-Most owned several radio stations, the newspaper Segodnia, and Itogi, a news magazine.
These were seen as the only real voices of opposition and many have since come under Kremlin control.
Gusinsky no longer owns any Russian media and his influence has dropped to a level where he is no longer a threat to the Kremlin.
Gusinsky was arrested in Moscow for three days in 2000 for alleged fraud, then went into exile.
He was later held briefly in Spain but Spanish authorities rejected a Russian extradition request.
Gusinsky, married with three sons, first studied during the Soviet era at the Moscow institute of petrol and gas, then at a theatre school.
In 1989, he founded Most-Bank. Business was good, helped by close relations with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
In 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gusinsky launched NTV, Russia's first private TV station.
In May 2000, members of Russia's fraud squad raided his business premises in a high-profile and heavy-handed raid.
Gusinsky accused Putin of slipping back into the authoritarian practices of the Soviet era.
But press reports on the raid said the police officers found 2,500 dossiers on public figures that Gusinksy's own security service had compiled, sometimes from illegal taps.
2003-08-23 21:01 | User Profile
Apparently Jews are not always "eternnally innocent," at least in the eyes of the Greek and Russian governments. It's a good start in Gusinsky's case, but it has yet to play out. Shyster lawyers may get him off the hook, with the aid of some back-channel diplomacy from high-placed Zionists in the American government.
-Z-
2003-08-24 00:26 | User Profile
LOL, he's about as "Russian" as Manichewitz and kosher latkes. Why doesn't the media ever call Jews what they are - Jews?
2003-08-24 17:21 | User Profile
Gusinsky is as "Russian" as they get.
By the way, why aren't American press calling Iraqi resistance "rebels", the term they've reserved for Chechen terrorists? Terminology is truly shaping the attitudes of the cattle that's being told what to think, or rather how to respond to stimulus.