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Top-Level Russian Official Arrested in U.S.
A high-ranking Russian official at the center of a Kremlin corruption scandal was detained after arriving at John F. Kennedy airport in New York, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
Pavel Borodin headed the Kremlin property administration under former President Boris Yeltsin, and currently is secretary of the Russia-Belarus Union - a post that guarantees him legal immunity in Russia.
Late last year, Russian prosecutors closed a more than two-year-old investigation into whether he and other members of Yeltsin's circle had received kickbacks from two Swiss firms that held lucrative contracts to refurbish Kremlin properties.
But Swiss authorities have signaled that they would continue to pursue the case. Last year, Swiss prosecutors put out a warrant for Borodin's arrest on charges of taking kickbacks from a Swiss firm that won lucrative contracts to refurbish the Kremlin and other state properties.
Borodin has denied the charges, and Russian prosecutors said that the Swiss had failed to provide sufficient evidence that a crime had been committed.
In Moscow, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called U.S. Ambassador James Collins to the ministry to formally protest the arrest. Ivanov demanded Borodin's ''immediate and unconditional release,'' said spokesman Vladimir Oshurkov.
The Interfax news agency said that Borodin had traveled to the United States to attend President-elect Bush's inauguration Saturday. Citing Borodin's lawyer, Genrikh Padva, the news agency said Borodin was traveling on a regular Russian passport.
Russian state television reported that Russian consular officials in New York had not yet been permitted access to Borodin. He was expected to appear in court later Thursday.
Some members of the Russian parliament angrily protested the arrest.
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