MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) – The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office will continue its legal actions to bring Boris Berezovsky’s criminally acquired assets back to Russia.
“As the Russian Criminal Code envisages a confiscation of property for forming and participation in a criminal community, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office will continue its legal actions, which are aimed at bringing back to Russia the assets, which Berezovsky and his accomplices illegally acquired and legalized abroad,” Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev said on Monday.
He recalled that during the investigation of the criminal case Berezovsky was brought to justice as a defendant for several heinous economic crimes, which he committed as a member of the transnational criminal community.
The Main Investigation Department of the Russian Investigation Committee was investigating several criminal cases, in which Boris Berezovsky was the defendant. In particular, Berezovsky was charged in absentia in the criminal case over the misappropriation in a fraud of the assets to the tune of over 200 million roubles from the open joint stock company Aeroflot in 1999 and a guilty verdict was passed against Berezovsky, who was sentenced to six years in prison. Berezovsky was sentenced to 13 years in prison in another criminal case over the property misappropriation from the open joint stock company AvtoVAZ to the tune of over 50 billion non-denominated roubles that was merged with the criminal case over the illegal confiscation of the land plot, which belonged to the state unitary enterprise Holiday Home Zhukovka.
Meanwhile, Berezovsky was accused of misappropriation of the monetary assets of the open joint stock company AKB SbS-AGRO (the joint stock commercial bank) to the tune of over 13 million dollars and money laundering, as well as deliberate denunciation against a person, who allegedly committed a heinous crime, the appeals to masterminding massive disorders, which were in the texts posted in the Internet, including “The open letter to those people not born in the Soviet Union” and “Arrest Putin. Restore the constitutional order.”
“Meanwhile, Berezovsky is accused of the offence that at the post of the deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, he signed an agreement with Chechen warlords Raduyev and Basayev that resulted in relieving these criminals, who committed grave crimes, from criminal responsibility. The foresaid criminal cases were merged in one criminal case and Berezovsky was brought to justice as the defendant,” the Russian Investigation Committee stated before.
In 2010, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office stated that the court authorities of Russia and Switzerland handed down five guilty verdicts on Berezovsky and his accomplices that entered in legal force. Meanwhile, the criminal cases were also opened against Berezovsky in several other countries, including France and Switzerland.
Meanwhile, the Russian Investigation Committee intends to investigate Berezovsky’s involvement in the murder of State Duma deputy Sergei Yushenkov.
However, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office was seeking for an extradition of Berezovsky in Russia in vain. The London Magistrates’ Court has passed several negative rulings for Berezovsky’s extradition to Russia under the pretext that he was granted political asylum in 2003.
The Russian Investigation Committee does not rule out a termination of the criminal cases against Berezovsky, spokesman for the Russian Investigation Committee Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass before. “If the Investigation Committee receives an official confirmation for the death of Boris Berezovsky from Britain, the criminal cases, in which Berezovsky is the defendant, may be terminated, if his relatives give a consent to this step,” Vladimir Markin underlined.