Pino Arlacchi, Member of European Parliament, Vice-President of the United Nations, talks about Russian criminal elite, comparing it to Cosa Nostra.

Pino Arlacchi is not upset on Khodorkovsky's case, saying that all those people who find Khodorkovsky a martyr of freedom are victims of scandalous misinformation. "This journalistic and political Tower of Babel of lies disorients everyone", — says Arlacchi. Mr. Arlacchi supposes he is able to see who is mafia and says Khodorkovsky is one of the most dangerous — instead of repentance and returning the stolen goods and ask for forgivness, he is sponsoring the campaigns aimed at shaping pubic opinion. "He is put on a par with Sakharov, Gandhi and soon will be compared to Jesus Christ!", — says Arlacchi.

Pino Arlacchi knows Russia of the nineties. According to him, Russia was a mafia state where the main architects and beneficiaries of income were Khodorkovsky and his associates oligarchs. This state was built with the help of Western financiers who took the advantage of Communism collapsing to gain pots of money. Eastern and U.S. banks took the money of Russian mafia and thus they helped to put the country on the verge of collapse. Putin stopped "the party" — this was a key for his success and that's why 70% of the voters preferred him. And becouse of this reason he dislikes American business and press, that suddenly "fall in love" with Khodorkovsky.

Arlacchi discourses the topic of Yeltsin's era, an "era of plutocracy, that should continue to steal and engage on corruption in order to survive". Russian oligarchs shows brutaliry and political arrogance in the same manner as Cosa Nostra bosses. But it is masked with great wealth, education and social status.

"Boris Berezovsky was the head of Russian Cosa Nostra", — says Arlacchi, — "This man is able to order a murder in the mourning and then to go to dinner with George Soros, who is going to save him. Berezovsky is a mathematician, corresponding member of Russian Academy of Sciences and Khodorkovsky had an important leadership role in the Komsomol. All the bosses, all of them were holding parliamentary seats, senior posts in industry, were mayors and media owners." Arlacchi points, that if Russian criminal elite hadn't been filling such a high intellectual level, nobody would have been a witness of the grand historical fraud. This fraud possibility came true with the help of the alliance, signed by the the "Magnificent Seven" in Davos, during the second annual World Economic Forum. The purpose of the alliance was to provide Yeltsin's support in the elections. This trick helped the oligarchs to seize nearly a half of Russia's wealth. This trick was called "loans for shares".

In 1995 the Russian government instead of asking loans from the Central bank asked the oligarch's banks for a loan. As a guarantee for their loans these banks recieved a temporary storage of stakes of the most largest Russian enterprises. One year later, the government decided to return the debts to allow banks to keep the shares. Thus, Berezovsky and his entrouge, borrowing 110 million dollars, became the owners of 51% shares of Sibneft, at the cost of $ 5 billion. The Menatep Group, heading by Khodorkovsky, had payed 160 million dollars to control the gas company Lukoil, that costs 6 billion. This trick called "loans for shares" is the main flaw of Russian capitalism, notes Pino Arlacchi. And this was the way to the fortification of Russian political oligarchy and the huge disasters. In a few years the gross national product fall by half. Everyone's savings turned into dust becouse of the depreciation of the ruble. In the 90th 40% of the population crossed the poverty line, the government didn't pay pensions and wages for a long period of time.

According to Arlacchi, this political system had no future. Its "Achilles heel" was the lack of this legal protection.

Sources:

www.unita.it
www.inosmi.ru
Ksenia Dzha