MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian regional lawmaker has been arrested in Chile and is facing extradition to Russia where he is wanted on fraud charges, a business daily said on Tuesday.
Sergei Zadnepryansky, 57, a lawmaker in a small west Siberian town, was arrested by Interpol at Russia's request and is now in jail in the Chilean capital of Santiago, Kommersant reported. He was put on the wanted list in April 2008 after fleeing the country when a probe was launched into his activities.
The paper said, citing a source in the prosecutor's office in the Omsk Region, that Zadnepryansky is suspected of failing to repay Sberbank a total of over 120 million rubles ($4.1 million at the current exchange rate) in loans he received in 2004 and 2005, the paper said.
"Investigators said the lawmaker, along with his business partners, forced people, including his employees at the Fortuna firm, to take loans, and seized most of the funds from them," the paper said.
Fortuna, based in the town of Isilkul, built residential buildings and installed plastic windows. Its property has been sold off by bailiffs to repay the debts to Sberbank, the paper said.
Zadnepryansky, elected to Isilkul's legislature in October 2005, maintained his position as a lawmaker as only a court can strip him of the post.
He was detained in the city of San Filipe, where he was working at a ceramic tile factory, the daily said. If convicted, he faces up to 14 years in prison.
An aide to the Omsk Region's prosecutor, Tatyana Borodina, told the paper there were three other suspects in the case, but did not give their names.
