Borodin found guilty of money laundering

Geneva chief prosecutor Bernard Bertossa (left) has successfully pursued Pavel Borodin swissinfo.ch

A Swiss court has fined a former Kremlin finance chief, Pavel Borodin, SFr300,000 after finding him guilty of money laundering.

A judge in Geneva handed down the fine on Tuesday after an anti-corruption investigation lasting more than two years.

He found the ex-Kremlin aide guilty of receiving SFr38 million in kickbacks from two Swiss companies – Mabetex and Mercata – in exchange for lucrative contracts to renovate the Kremlin and the Russian presidential plane.

Borodin’s lawyer in Geneva, Vincent Solari, told swissinfo his client was satisfied with the verdict, although he “would have preferred the case to have been dropped altogether”.

Solari said the fact that Borodin was merely fined was proof that the prosecutor, Bernard Bertossa, had a weak case. He added that Borodin had not yet decided whether to appeal – he has 14 days to do so.

Former Yeltsin aide

Borodin – who was one of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s key finance advisers – maintained his innocence during the investigation. He was informed of the guilty verdict on Monday.

Solari said the court would now have to return the SFr5 million bail, which Borodin was required to pay before he could leave Switzerland at the beginning of the trial.

He admitted the money had been stumped up by the Russian government – something Moscow had never confirmed – and that it was “important for Borodin to recover this amount” to return to the Russian Federation.

The Borodin case first emerged publicly in 1999, when evidence emerged of money laundering using Swiss bank accounts in 1994 and 1995.

Arrested in 2001

The former aide was taken into custody on a Swiss arrest warrant in January 2001 while traveling in the United States.

Borodin currently holds the largely ceremonial post of secretary of the Russian-Belorussian Union, appointed by President Vladimir Putin.

Mabetex and Mercata – who have had accounts frozen by investigators reinstated – won contracts to refurbish the Kremlin and presidential plane worth SFr486 million.

Bertossa also dropped investigations against Mabetex boss, Behgjet Pacolli, and Mercata head, Viktor Stolpovskikh.

Lawyers for the two men said they had suffered personally and financially as a result of the affair.

swissinfo with agencies