Pavel Borodin Arrested In US On Swiss Extradition Warrant

Tatiana Smolenska, Tax-News.com, Moscow

19 January 2001

The Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, summoned the US Russian Ambassador yesterday to demand the immediate release of Pavel Borodin, arrested on Wednesday at JFK on his way to attend the inauguration of George W Bush, on a Swiss extradition warrant.

Mr Borodin was closely associated with President Yeltsin while he was in power, and remains part of the Russian presidential apparatus under President Vladimir Putin. Borodin, who is accused by the Swiss of taking millions of dollars in kickbacks from companies involved in the refurbishment of the Kremlin, appeared yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn on a Swiss arrest warrant. "Yes, I understand that well," he said through an interpreter after the judge explained that he was being detained on an extradition request from the Swiss authorities.

Mr. Borodin's lawyers asked Judge Viktor V. Pohorelsky to allow Mr. Borodin to stay at the residence of the Russian consul general under a guarantee of good conduct issued by the Russian Ambassador, but the Judge refused. Mr Borodin will remain in custody at least until a bail hearing on 25th January.

According to the New York Times, Mr. Borodin was invited 'by mistake' to an inaugural "candlelight dinner" being given by Vincent J. Zenga, a Florida lawyer, who has been a major contributor to the Republican party. But Mr. Zenga said the invitation was sent by someone in the Moscow office of one of his companies, Star Capital. Mr. Zenga, 52, said in an interview that he had never met Mr. Borodin and that his signature on the invitation had been penned electronically. "Neither I nor anyone in our company was aware of his legal problems," Mr. Zenga said. He added, "We're trying to get to the bottom of this."

Official investigations in Russia into what has been called the 'Mabetex' affair after the name of a Swiss company involved in the renovations were terminated recently after nine months in which bad-tempered accusations flew back and forth between the Russian and Swiss prosecutors. The Swiss suggested that the Russian investigators were reluctant to incriminate Russian officials or members of the Yeltsin family, while the Russian prosecutor said that the Swiss were slow and unco-operative.

Lead Russian prosecutor Ruslan Tamayev at one point said that the Swiss should pursue the arrest of former Kremlin manager Pavel Borodin more vigorously if they wanted progress in the case: 'If they really wanted to arrest Borodin, they would have issued a warrant quietly. Then they would have given the instruction to Interpol. And that is all. Borodin has neither diplomatic, nor deputy immunity. But as it is, they are only trying to scare him.' Tamayev said that the Swiss had not even asked the Russian Prosecutor's office to question Borodin on their behalf.

Now the Swiss appear to have taken Mr Tamayev's advice, having issued a new warrant for Mr. Borodin's arrest last week, according to the complaint filed in the Brooklyn court. "We will be asking the United States to extradite Borodin to Switzerland," said Bernard Bertossa, the chief prosecutor in Geneva.

It is a puzzle that Pavel Borodin should not have known about the new Swiss arrest warrant, and also that he should have chosen to travel on a standard Russian passport with a multiple business visa, rather than the diplomatic passport which he apparently also owns, and which would have prevented his arrest. In Moscow, US Embassy officials said that a request for a diplomatic visa had been lodged, but that the request had been withdrawn by the Foreign Ministry before it could be processed after Mr Borodin had already left for New York.

In the New York Times, one of Mr Borodin's lawyers, Alexander Fishkin, speculates that his client might have been set up for arrest, but he does not suggest by whom. "The arrest warrant is issued on January 10th, he receives an invitation to the inauguration on January 13th and a complaint is filed in New York for his arrest on January 17th," he said. "It could be a coincidence, yes, but it looks too strange to be a coincidence." Officials in Washington said the United States was tipped off by someone in Russia that Mr. Borodin was on a plane to New York.

At first sight, it seems as though the arrest of one of his officials on what could be portrayed a semi-official visit could be an embarassment for President Putin. But Mr Borodin's job, as head of the commission for the reunification of Belarus with the Russian Federation, could be viewed as a poisoned chalice (Russia needs Belarus back like it needs a hole in the head) and it is equally possible that Mr Borodin has been set up by his own masters and will be thrown to the wolves as a way of putting an end to the long-running Mabetex case. If that's so, then the Russians are taking a chance on what might be revealed during a court hearing in Switzerland . . .

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