Charges Against Russian Tycoon Ruled Illegal

A Moscow court ruled Tuesday that fraud charges by the nation’s top prosecutor against media tycoon Vladimir A. Gusinsky were unsubstantiated and illegal.

The prosecutor general’s office, however, said it would appeal the ruling and continue pressing its case against Gusinsky, the Interfax news agency reported.

Head of the Media-Most holding company, Gusinsky is under house arrest in Spain, where he was detained earlier this month at the request of Russian authorities. Spanish officials are considering whether to extradite him.

Gusinsky is one of Russia’s so-called oligarchs, businessmen who used their Kremlin connections to acquire fortunes in dubious privatization deals during President Boris N. Yeltsin’s administration. His ties with the Kremlin have soured since Vladimir V. Putin came to power, and Gusinsky’s media outlets have harshly criticized the president.

Gusinsky claims the case against him was spun together as retribution for his criticism of Putin. The Kremlin has denied the accusation, and Putin says prosecutors are trying to make Gusinsky and other politically influential tycoons abide by the nation’s economic laws.

Gusinsky’s lawyers had protested the charges against him in Moscow’s Tverskoi court, demanding they be dropped for lack of evidence.

The court ruled Tuesday in his favor, NTV television reported. NTV is Media-Most’s flagship station and the only one of Russia’s three main networks that is not state-controlled.

“This means that, in the Russian judicial system, there are some people left who won’t give in to pressure,” Media-Most spokesman Dmitri Ostalsky was quoted as saying.

It was unclear what effect the ruling would have on the Spanish authorities’ decision.

Russian prosecutors allege that Gusinsky overstated Media-Most’s assets to win $300 million in loan guarantees in 1996 from the state-owned natural gas monopoly Gazprom. Prosecutors say the company was bankrupt at the time.