DATE=7/27/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA - GUSINSKY (L)
NUMBER=2-264846
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Russian police have reportedly dropped fraud
charges against Vladimir Gusinsky, head of the
country's largest privately-owned media empire. VOA
Moscow correspondent Peter Heinlein reports the
charges had provoked international outrage and fears
of a crackdown on independent media.
TEXT: Prosecutors have closed the criminal case
against Russian media baron and fierce Kremlin critic
Vladimir Gusinsky for lack of evidence. The
announcement was made by a spokesman for Mr.
Gusinsky's Media-Most holding company, which owns
Russia's only independent national television network,
along with newspapers, magazines and a radio station.
The spokesman says the 47-year old businessman flew to
Spain Wednesday, shortly after being informed that an
order prohibiting him from travelling abroad had been
lifted.
Mr. Gusinsky was jailed for three days in June,
charged with cheating the government out of 10-million
dollars in the purchase of a television station in
Russia's second city, St. Petersburg. During the
investigation, police repeatedly called Mr. Gusinsky
in for questioning, and several times seized documents
from Media-Most's offices.
The case provoked international outrage, and prompted
fears that President Vladimir Putin had authorized a
general crackdown on independent media. President
Clinton, during a recent visit to Moscow, appeared on
a call-in show on a Gusinsky-owned radio station in a
symbolic show of support for press freedom.
Others saw the charges against Mr. Gusinsky as a sign
of a Kremlin offensive against Russia's so-called
"oligarchs" - a group of businessmen who acquired vast
wealth in the 1990s through privatization deals that
many charged were rigged in their favor.
President Putin has scheduled a Kremlin meeting Friday
with many of the country's leading business
executives. But Mr. Gusinsky was notably left off the
invitation list, along with another controversial
"oligarch", Boris Berezovsky.
Kremlin officials say the meeting was called to
discuss rising tensions between President Putin and
the business community. Several business leaders have
charged that they are being targeted by law
enforcement agencies in a Kremlin-inspired crackdown
on those who became wealthy in the years following the
collapse of the Soviet Union. (Signed)
NEB/PFH/GE/PLM
27-Jul-2000 05:33 AM EDT (27-Jul-2000 0933 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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