Reuters AlertNet Lite - Police investigate violent death of Russia banker

Reuters AlertNet Full site

NEWSDESK

Police investigate violent death of Russia banker

07 Dec 2007 11:31:17 GMT
Source: Reuters

MOSCOW, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Investigators are probing the death of a top manager at Russia's second largest bank VTB, who was found with his arms and legs bound in a swimming pool, police and law enforcement sources said on Friday.

"We have just started a file on this case and have passed it on to one of our top investigators," a source in the Investigative Committee of the Central Federal District said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Oleg Zhukovsky, who headed state-run VTB's <VTBR.MM> lending operations in Russia's lucrative $19 billion a year logging industry, was found dead on Thursday in a pool near his luxury home with his limbs bound, said police officer Oleg Krasnoshyokov.

"It looked like he was drowned," said Krasnoshyokov, who serves in the town of Odyntsovo near Moscow where Zhukovsky owned a house in a gated community.

But Russian television said police were also probing a possible suicide.

In Zhukovsky's home, police found a note which said "I am very tired of life. It is nobody's fault," Kommersant reported. Handwriting experts were examining the note to determine who had written it, the state-run RIA agency said.

Analysts said Russia's logging industry is going through a tumultuous period that has made it a magnet for criminals.

All of Russia's forest leasing contracts must be annulled and rewritten by the end of next year in accordance with new regulations that came into effect at the start of this year.

"The regulations themselves are very murky, and all this is being done at least partially outside the law," said Alexei Yaroshchenko, forestry analyst at Greenpeace Russia.

"This has indeed helped to make it a very criminalised business as groups compete over these leases," Yaroshchenko said.

Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov on Wednesday told an industry conference that the logging business was going through a difficult time and needed to be "renewed from the roots".

VTB board member Vasily Titov said it was too early to speculate on the cause of Zhukovsky's death.

"Police officials are doing their work. We have no evidence of aggravated murder," Titov said. (Reporting by Simon Shuster and Dmitry Sergeev; editing by Sami Aboudi)

AlertNet news is provided by

Email this article Send comments

Countries

Small country map
© 2004 Europa Technologies Ltd.

Reset map

• Russia profile
· View map

MORE >>

NGO latest

• Study Finds 37.4% HIV Prevalence Among Street Youth in Russia
DOW

• Life saving presents for Christmas
Christian Aid - UK

• Chechenya: Finishing the last sanitary system in Grozny
PHO

MORE >>

Latest news

• Police investigate violent death of Russia banker

• NATO nations vow to maintain Kosovo force

• Burma: Crackdown Bloodier Than Government Admits

• Space shuttle launch delayed for at least 2 days

• Kosovo backers to make tough NATO security pledge

MORE >>

Last updated:Fri Dec 7 11:31:11 2007