MOSCOW (January 25) - Russian police yesterday arrested Mikhail Mirilashvili, a business partner of jailed media mogul Vladimir Goussinsky and head of the St. Petersburg chapter of the Russian Jewish Congress, on kidnapping and corruption charges.
He caused slight alarm earlier when he tried to arrange a flight to Israel on President Moshe Katsav's plane. Mirilashvili, who reportedly has Israeli citizenship, had requested to join the president's delegation on his return flight.
Mirilashvili hoped to meet Katsav during a cocktail party conference with leaders of Russian Jewish groups in Moscow yesterday.
A spokeswoman for the president said Mirilashvili had indirectly approached Brig.-Gen. Shimon Hefetz, Katsav's military adviser, who was responsible for compiling the list of members in the delegation that accompanied the president on his current trip, and had requested to return on the plane to Israel. His request was denied.
Delegation members said they'd heard reports there had been attempts to smuggle Mirilashvili onto the plane when it left Russia.
The arrest drew widespread coverage in Russian news media in part because Mirilashvili is an associate of Goussinsky, who has been charged with fraud in a dispute over control of Russia's largest private media company.
Goussinsky is president of the Russian Jewish Congress, one of the two main national Jewish organizations in Russia, while Mirilashvili is director of the St. Petersburg chapter.
Mirilashvili was also president of Russian Video, a St. Petersburg business affiliated with Goussinsky's media company and the target of a separate investigation by prosecutors, according to the Interfax news agency.
But prosecutors said the kidnapping case had nothing to do with Mirilashvili's relationship to Goussinsky. Mirilashvili also owned casinos and other businesses in St. Petersburg, and had been involved in backing political campaigns, NTV television news reported.
The Russian Jewish Congress would not immediately comment on the arrest.
Agents of Russia's Federal Security Service, which investigates organized crime and terrorism, detained Mirilashvili on Tuesday evening at his apartment in St. Petersburg, said prosecutor Ivan Sydoruk.
He said Mirilashvili was charged with kidnapping two people, and said the arrest was not linked to any legal actions against Goussinsky.
Sydoruk would not identify the two victims, but said "the case may be related to the kidnapping of Mirilashvili's father last year." He declined to elaborate.
Mirilashvili's attorney, Yury Novolotsky, said his client had nothing to do with any kidnappings.
Goussinsky was briefly arrested last summer in a case alleging theft of state property at Russian Video. After his release, he left Russia.
Goussinsky has said that case and the current charges against him are politically motivated as retaliation for critical coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin in his media outlets. He is under house arrest in Spain, fighting an extradition request from Russia.
He is now charged with fraud in receiving loan guarantees from Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom in 1996.
