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Russian business club bemoans prosecutor's probes
MOSCOW, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Russia's main business club, dubbed an oligarchs' forum of rich influential executives, hit out on Monday at recent financial probes by prosecutors and said they were blackening the country's image.
President Vladimir Putin has promised a "dictatorship of the law." A new campaign of probes has already forced out a long-serving railways minister this year.
But the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs said in a letter to Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov, quoted by Interfax news agency, that some probes were going too far.
In particular, it took exception to what it called heavy handed action against a subsidiary of state-controlled Gazprom, two of whose top executives were charged last Friday with abuse of authority in an asset-stripping case.
"Heavy-handed actions by the security services can easily undermine the trust, which is difficult to build, but which has been restored in the reliability of Russian economic agents and the economy as a whole," the business group said.
Interfax reported last Friday that the two executives at the Sibur subsidiary, Yakov Goldovski and Yevgeny Koshchits, respectively president and vice president, had been held since January 8.
The chairman Vyacheslav Sheremet was also detained on January 8 but was released on condition that he not leave Moscow.
The Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs groups top businessmen, including some of the select group of oil and banking magnates known as oligarchs for their influence over the Kremlin and government.
Rights groups have said prosecutors and the judiciary are being used to fight Putin's political enemies rather than just battle corruption. They cite the closure of television group TV6, the only national station outside Kremlin control, on the grounds of bankruptcy.
The Sibur action has been backed by investors as a way of getting assets back to Gazprom. Some shareholders say billions of dollars of assets have been siphoned off.
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