The detention of in the USA of Pavel Borodin, who headed the Kremlin property administration under Yeltsin and is currently the Secretary-General of the Union of Russia and Belarus, at the request of the law-enforcement agencies of Switzerland, should serve as a “lesson that we should tackle corruption ourselves, at home”, said Sergei Ivanenko, Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma.

“The refusal of our Public Prosecutor’s Office to cooperate with the law enforcement agencies of Switzerland on the investigation of the so-called Mabetex case demonstrates that there is something amiss in this agency (the Public Prosecutor’s Office),” added Ivanenko as he talked to journalists on January 18, 2001.

Deputy Speaker of the State Duma (the Yabloko faction) Vladimir Lukin stressed in turn in an interview with the press, that the US judicial system was very solid and that it would soon pronounce its verdict on further actions in Borodin’s case.

Lukin believes that the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not have at present “any formal pretext” for intervening in this issue, as Pavel Borodin was not carrying a diplomatic passport with him.

Based on Interfax reports.