RUSSIA: Russia pledged yesterday to try and extradite tycoon and Kremlin critic Vladimir Gusinsky from Greece on fraud charges, further heightening already fierce tension between Russia's political and business elites.
Mr Gusinsky was arrested last week at Athens airport and remanded in jail on Monday, while Greek authorities awaited Russia's latest move against a man who has already been driven into exile and seen his media empire broken.
"The prosecutor general has received from his Greek colleagues notification of the detention of the suspect V. Gusinsky," the prosecutor's office said yesterday.
"This notification will be translated into Russian today and the preparation of documents for \ extradition begun." Russian authorities accuse the theatre impresario-turned-media mogul of money laundering and fraudulently acquiring some $260 million in loans.
Mr Gusinsky (51) fled to Spain in 2000 and successfully fought off an extradition request from Russia a year later. He moved to Israel after his victory in a Madrid court, and holds Russian and Israeli citizenship.
At the time, both the US and EU raised public fears of Moscow's motivation for pursuing Mr Gusinsky. An unnamed, high-ranking Greek diplomat told AFP news agency yesterday that the US and Israel had urged Greece not to send him back to Moscow.
Mr Gusinsky controlled a media empire led by NTV, which was Russia's leading independent television station until it was seized by a state-controlled gas company in spring 2001.
Law enforcers said Mr Gusinsky owed the gas firm hundreds of millions of dollars, but the tycoon complained of a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to silence a television station that was at times fiercely critical of President Vladimir Putin.