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Gorbachev: Idea to open criminal cases for USSR breakup is ill-considered

The parliamentarians hope that criminal cases would be opened against those responsible for the USSR breakup, including Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev ITAR-TASS/Vyacheslav Prokofyev

Mikhail Gorbachev

© ITAR-TASS/Vyacheslav Prokofyev

MOSCOW, April 10. /ITAR-TASS/. Former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev has called “ill-considered and rash” the idea of a number of members of the State Duma (lower house of Russian parliament) to initiate a prosecutor’s investigation into the events of the period of the Soviet Union dissolution with the subsequent opening of criminal cases against those who responsible. “Undoubtedly, this (the MP action) is an ill-considered and rash decision. What else can be commented here?” Gorbachev told ITAR-TASS in an interview.

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The Izvestia daily reported on Thursday that a group of Duma members from different factions had prepared an inquiry addressed to Russain Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika with a request to conduct a prosecutor’s investigation into the circumstances of the USSR disintegration. The parliamentarians hope that criminal cases would be opened against those responsible for the USSR breakup, including Gorbachev.

Following the lawmakers’ logic, Gorbachev said, it would be necessary “to take all the old Duma members who voted for the USSR dissolution (members of upper house of the USSR Supreme Soviet), put all of them in wagons and send to explore the Sea of Okhotsk expanse.”

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The parliamentarians stated in their request that USSR citizens in a referendum had voted for the preservation of the unity of the state, but the top Soviet leaders’ illegal actions caused the country’s collapse. The initiators of the probe stress that back on November 4, 1991, the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office’s department for supervision over the compliance with state security laws had opened a case against USSR President Gorbachev, however, the next day, under the pressure from the last Soviet leader, the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office cancelled its order on institution of criminal proceedings.

The MPs accuse Gorbachev of the creation of the USSR State Council and management of this body that had not been envisioned by the USSR Constitution.

The initiators of the inquiry are MPs from the United Russia party Yevgeny Fyodorov and Anton Romanov, members of the CPRF (Communist) party Ivan Nikitchuk and Oleg Denisenko, as well as representative of the LDPR (Liberal Democratic) faction Mikhail Degtyaryov.

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