Gusinsky Walks Free on Bail

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, September 01, 2003

Gusinsky Walks Free on Bail

An Athens court freed Vladimir Gusinsky on bail Friday as Russian prosecutors continued to draft a request to extradite him to Moscow to face multimillion-dollar fraud charges.

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An Athens court freed Vladimir Gusinsky on bail Friday as Russian prosecutors continued to draft a request to extradite him to Moscow to face multimillion-dollar fraud charges.

Casually dressed in blue jeans and a bright blue T-shirt, a smiling Gusinsky made no comment as he walked out of the maximum-security Korydallos prison with his lawyers and headed for a luxury hotel.

"Mr. Gusinsky was ordered to be released on a 100,000 euro ($108,200) bail," his Greek lawyer Alexandros Likourezos said, Reuters reported. "He will stay in an Athens hotel and is not allowed to leave the country."

A council of three appellate judges accepted an argument from Gusinsky's lawyers that the former media magnate was not a flight risk and could not look after his business interests from prison.

Gusinsky, 51, was arrested at the Athens international airport on Aug. 21 after arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv, reportedly for a family vacation.

He had been jailed in the hospital wing of Korydallos since Aug. 25.

Gusinsky was to have checked into the five-star Athenaeum InterContinental, but the hotel switchboard maintained Friday and Sunday that he was not staying there.

Russian prosecutors, meanwhile, said they soon will send Greece a formal extradition request within a week and a half.

Source: Agencies

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