Putin critic targeted in fraud

A criminal probe targeting former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov is raising fresh fears that the government of President Vladimir Putin is using the courts to intimidate or silence critics.

Russian prosecutors earlier this week confirmed that they had begun a formal investigation into charges of fraud and abuse of office by Mr. Kasyanov in connection with a posh villa he reportedly purchased while in office through front companies at a deep discount.

Mr. Kasyanov, who was dismissed abruptly by Mr. Putin in February 2004 and has talked of running to replace him in 2008, denied the charges. He faces a maximum five years in prison if convicted.

U.S. officials said they are watching the legal battle. The Bush administration was critical of the prosecution of Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, another sharp Putin critic who was convicted last year and sentenced to nine years in prison for tax evasion and embezzlement.

“It is difficult to make any conclusion today” about the Kasyanov case, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said in Moscow on Monday, as reported by the RIA-Novosti news service.

But, he added, “I hope the case is not linked with politics, particularly the 2008 presidential campaign.”

State Department spokesman Tom Casey declined direct comment on the case in Washington yesterday but said, “Obviously, we want to see any investigation done in accordance with Russian national law and in a transparent manner.”

Russia observers say the probe, announced while Mr. Kasyanov was out of the country on vacation, was clearly a political act by the Kremlin with an eye to the race for Mr. Putin’s successor.

“Politics in Russia today is a rough-and-tumble affair,” said the Heritage Foundation’s Ariel Cohen.

Asked whether he thought the Kremlin was behind the investigation, he added, “One doesn’t prosecute a former prime minister in Russia without first getting the most supreme sanction.”

Alexander Khinshtein, an investigative journalist and member of the Russian legislature for the pro-Putin United Russia Party, published the expose earlier this month of Mr. Kasyanov’s dealings, which resulted in the criminal investigation.

But even Mr. Khinshtein acknowledged to the Russian political news Web site www.polit.ru that the probe was in part a “pre-emptive measure” to make it clear to Mr. Kasyanov that prosecutors could find far more evidence of wrongdoing if he runs for president in 2008.

Mikhail Delyagin, a lawmaker from the Motherland Party, told a Russian newspaper, “We are moving toward a situation where soon criminal cases will be filed against all politicians who are not members of United Russia.”

As with Mr. Khodorkovsky, who made a vast fortune in the confused rush to privatization in Russia in the 1990s, Mr. Kasyanov, 47, has a checkered past that could provide ample material for prosecutors.

One of the last members of former President Boris Yeltsin’s notorious “Family” to survive in Mr. Putin’s Kremlin, Mr. Kasyanov has long been dogged by accusations of corruption and bribe-taking. He even earned the nickname “Mischa Two Percent” for his reported ability to profit from his political posts, Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. Putin, constitutionally barred from running for a third term in 2008, has not commented publicly on the case.

Since leaving office in February 2004, Mr. Kasyanov has become a harsh critic of the government’s economic policies, saying Russia is retreating from free-market reforms. He also has criticized the prosecution of Mr. Khodorkovsky.