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Russia Takes Positive Steps to Get Borodin Freed
Russia is taking energetic measures to attain the release of Russian politician Pavel Borodin, arrested by the US police Thursday at the Kennedy airport in New York for alleged money laundering, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said here.
"We are taking measures both in the United States and Switzerland, and demand the US immediately and unconditionally set free the state secretary of the Russian-Belarussian Union State, detained upon his arrival in New York on a warrant issued by the Swiss Geneva prosecutor's office," Ivanov told a news conference.
Earlier, Ivanov summoned US envoy to Moscow James Collins to protest over the arrest of Borodin, demanding his immediate and unconditional release.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko declared in Minsk on Thursday that Borodin's detention was an extremely unfriendly challenge by the U.S. to Russia and Belarus.
"We consider Borodin to be the State Secretary of the Union State. But since he is a citizen of Russia, all other issues should fall under the Russian jurisdiction", Belarussian Foreign Ministry press secretary Pavel Latushko said.
Latushko noted that the Belarussian and Russian foreign ministries were coordinating actions on Borodin's case.
Today's trip was Borodin's first foreign travel since the Swiss prosecutors had launched charges against him. His press secretary said the arrest was aimed to discredit the strengthening structures of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
Borodin was head of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin property empire and was at the center of a series of allegations of bribe taking involving Swiss firms which dogged the final years in Boris' office.
Borodin was moved from his Kremlin post after Vladimir Putin came to power last year and is currently the head of a special body overseeing efforts to form a Russian-Belarussian union.
He has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and Russian prosecutors dropped their investigation of him last year. However, a Swiss prosecutor issued a warrant for his arrest.
On Thursday, Geneva's chief prosecutor Bernard Bertossa said in London that he would shortly ask U.S. authorities to hand over Borodin.
Itar-Tass news agency said a New York court will question Borodin later. Interfax news agency said he had been invited to the United States to attend the inauguration Saturday of President- elect George W. Bush.
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