Russian General, in Corruption Trial, Says He Obeyed Orders

In what the defendant complained was a show trial meant to squelch claims of unchecked corruption in the Russian military, a prominent air force general came before the Supreme Court on Tuesday facing charges of embezzlement and bribery.

Maj. Gen. Nikolai Seliverstov, 49, was the highest-ranking officer yet brought to trial for alleged involvement in the shady dealings that were reportedly widespread among the Western Group of Forces that served in Germany. The Russian troops completed their withdrawal in August.

Although the investigation began in 1992, Seliverstov’s trial came at a time when the Russian military particularly needed to demonstrate that it can police its own.

“I have been picked as a scapegoat,” Seliverstov declared to reporters during a break in the proceedings. “I categorically reject all the false charges and allegations against me.”

A Russian reporter, Dmitry Kholodov, who specialized in digging up dirt on the troops in Germany, was killed last month by an exploding briefcase. Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, saying he needed to preserve the honor of the army, later dumped the former commander of the Western Group of Forces from his new post as deputy defense minister.

Public attacks on the Russian military climaxed in Parliament on Friday, when beleaguered Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev was forced to answer lawmakers’ pointed questions for hours. Fortunately for Grachev, Parliament does not have the constitutional power to remove him.

Seliverstov, speaking to reporters, worried that “the timing of this case is not beneficial to me,” coming so soon after Kholodov’s death. Prosecutors said Tuesday that they had arrested a suspect in the case, but it has yet to be declared solved.

Seliverstov’s trial could, however, benefit the army. Beginning his defense on Tuesday, Seliverstov offered an unusually sympathetic glimpse of the under-the-table life among the cash-strapped Russian officers in Germany.

He told the court that, in 1991, the Defense Ministry issued a directive saying that “we had to earn money to support ourselves--not defend the motherland as a priority. . . . If there had been no such order, there would have been no money made, and hence, there would be no court proceedings against me today.”

In 1991 and 1992, Seliverstov said, he helped pull in $1 million through air exhibitions, the sale of equipment and transportation services.

To help make ends meet, Seliverstov agreed to arrange several cargo flights of humanitarian aid to Kazakhstan for some German priests. The indictment said he allegedly took not only tens of thousands of dollars for the flights but $13,000 in bribes for himself.

The relatively measly sum fueled Seliverstov’s complaints that he had been singled out for punishment.

“Aren’t there any instances of corruption in places other than (the Western Group of Forces?)” he demanded. “And on a far greater scale, too! . . . To lay the emphasis on the fact that this is the biggest (case of corruption) is simply dishonest.”

No one would dispute that Seliverstov’s alleged take was small, especially considering that he now faces up to 15 years in prison.

The problem is that despite German descriptions of Russian under-the-table dealings and even an investigation by Russia’s former top corruption fighter, little else has been pinned down.

Military prosecutors say that only nine Western Group soldiers have been convicted for theft and corruption since 1992, among them two colonels, a captain and a major.

But the Russian press, especially since Kholodov’s death, has carried allegations of army supplies sold illegally to dealers, stolen weapons making their way to world markets and military money slipping into secret personal accounts abroad.

Andrei Ostroukh of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this story.