MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov). -- Ex-Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov chose a good time to resign to avoid yet another major failure.
Earlier this week, a British court again dismissed the request of Russian General Prosecutor's Office and refused to extradite Boris Berezovsky, the wanted Russian tycoon who had been granted political asylum in 2003 and a new passport in the name of Platon Elenin.
Judging from what Mr. Berezovsky has been doing in the U.K. lately, he should have applied for the alias of Lenin instead. Like the Bolshevik leader, he has stayed abroad for months, hallucinating another Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the hated President Vladimir Putin. And he is not just waiting but investing in this mission all his efforts and capital - whose questionable nature is exactly the reason why he cannot do the same at home.
His difference from Vladimir Lenin lies in the high profile he keeps. While Lenin had to prepare his coup under cover, chased by tsarist police and living rough in the woods, Mr. Elenin declares his violent plans openly and unabashedly.
"Any violence on the part of the opposition will be justified today," he told the Moscow-based Ekho Moskvy radio station in January. "This applies to a forced overthrow of the government as well, which is exactly what I am working at."
Had he said something like that in the United States, a mature democracy, his immediate future would no doubt have involved long and unpleasant talks to people from FBI. The "Ekho D.C." would have been fined, if not taken off the air, for instigation. In Russia, however, a young democracy, the network that gave Berezovsky coverage, is still alive and kicking.
Britain - another mature democracy - did as much as give Berezovsky a warning, seconding Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, that the government would "take action against those who use the U.K. as a base from which to foment violent disorder or terrorism in other countries."
Many thanks, thought Russia's State Duma and General Prosecutor's Office shortly after this statement. Apparently deciding to help the British "take action," they added "conspiracy aimed at violent overthrow of the government" (Article 278 of the Criminal Code) to the list of charges against the exiled businessman, which had until then included little beyond the white-collar "fraud" and "money laundering".
The Russians, however, could as well save on paper. In a ruling that from the current perspective looks fairly predictable, Senior District Judge Timothy Workman again shielded Berezovsky from justice, saying the tycoon would not be extradited as long as he officially has political asylum. Strange logic, indeed. Surely London did not know its favorite was "working on violent overthrow of the government" as its officials were writing out a new passport for him, or did it?
The judge went further to say the extradition request should be rejected because the trial could end up "too expensive for British taxpayers." Maybe he just mistook The Independent's latest Tony Blair cartoon depicting the PM begging for money in the street, apparently in view of impending loss of his job, as some sort of economic forecast for the entire nation? In any case, refusing to hold a trial just because it might get too expensive is something of an innovation in the British legal system.
In short, it seems that whatever the U.K. judiciary means by rejecting Russian extradition letters on Berezovsky, its motives are clearly other than legal. Apparently, Berezovsky - recklessly vociferous and overwhelmed by conspiracy theories - is seen as a potential tool, small but handy, to put pressure on a positive but not always overly cooperative partner. This probably also helps explain why Berezovsky is by no means the only Russian businessman on Interpol's wanted list, allowed to maintain a flamboyant lifestyle on the British soil.
It also seems London is playing tolerance again, despite a bitter lesson learned on 7/7 as years of taking little notice of donations and recruitments in favor of Chechen and other Islamist insurgencies one day ended up in flames in the London Metro and a blast reducing to rubble a double-decker full of people.
Of course Berezovsky is not a 7/7-style suicide bomber and he hopefully does not plan to stage a hostage crisis at 10 Downing Street. This, however, does not necessarily mean the exiled Russian frauds-turned-quasi-freedom-fighters will not some day backfire on those who so kindly help them evade justice.
