Russian central banker murdered after attacking insolvencies and corruption

Russian Central Banker Dies of Wounds

By Steve Gutterman
Associated Press
Wednesday, September 14, 2006

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060914/ap_on_re_eu/russia_banker_shot

The top deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank died Thursday, hours after being shot by unidentified assailants in an attack that officials suggested was prompted by his efforts to clean up the country's banking system.

Andrei Kozlov, the bank's first deputy chairman, died hours after he was hospitalized in critical condition following the shooting late Wednesday, Moscow prosecutor's office spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.

Kozlov's driver was also killed in the attack, which Russian media said was carried out by two gunmen who fled after the shooting. It occurred outside a sports arena where bank employees were having a soccer game.

While rarer than in the turbulent 1990s, contract killings of businessmen and bankers still regularly occur in Russia, where business conflicts often turn violent.

Vice Premier Alexander Zhukov said the shooting was likely linked to Kozlov's duties, and suggested the possibility of a connection with the Central Bank's revocation of licenses of unreliable commercial banks, the Interfax news agency reported.

Kozlov had been responsible for banking supervision, and had overseen an ambitious program to reduce criminality and money laundering in the banking system.

"His steps to cleanse the (banking) system and to build a normal, civilized system apparently strongly encroached upon somebody's interests," the head of the Association of Russian Banks, Garegin Tosunian, told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Kozlov, 41, had been the Central Bank's first deputy chairman since 2002 after first holding that position from 1997-1999.

His work had made him a potential target for the owners of the hundreds of unsound or criminal banks operating in Russia, and he had frequently been the target of smear campaigns in Russian newspapers and on Web sites.

Kozlov's most conspicuous achievement had been the introduction of a deposit insurance program designed to restore faith in the banking system after widespread defaults in 1998, in which many Russians lost their savings.

At Kozlov's initiative, bank licenses were revoked and others were effectively earmarked for closure when they were denied access to the deposit insurance program.

Kozlov "repeatedly infringed upon the interests of dishonest financiers," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying. Kudrin called him "a very courageous and honest person who was at the forefront of the struggle with financial crime."

Opening a Cabinet meeting hours after Kozlov's death, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov expressed condolences to his wife and children and government officials stood for a moment of silence, shown on state television.

Anatoly Chubais, a former prime minister who is now head of electricity monopoly RAO Unified Energy Systems and survived an assassination attempt last year, called Kozlov "an unquestionably honest, principled and absolutely noncommercial person."

"His killing is an impudent challenge to all Russian authorities," Chubais said in a statement.

Tim Ash, an analyst with the investment firm Bear Stearns, said the shooting was a direct affront to Putin's government and threatened a return to the violence that plagued Russia's chaotic business world following the 1991 Soviet collapse, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

"We would expect Putin to set the resolution of this case as an absolute priority for the country's security services," Ash was quoted as saying. "Failure to apprehend the killers would send a signal to others that intimidation of government officials is once again an option."

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