Man Held in Contract Killing Of Russian Banking Official

MOSCOW, Jan. 11 -- Prosecutors said Thursday that they have arrested the man they suspect of ordering the contract killing of senior bank regulator Andrei Kozlov, who was gunned down in Moscow as he left a soccer game between Central Bank employees in September.

Russian news media identified the suspect as Alexei Frankel, 35, the chairman of the small VIP Bank, which was shut down by Kozlov in June. His attorney told the Reuters news agency that Frankel was arrested at 1 a.m. Thursday and denies the charges.

"The murder is definitely connected" with Kozlov's "professional activities," Marina Gridneva, spokeswoman for the prosecutor general's office, told reporters Thursday.

Kozlov, 41, was highly respected by foreign banking officials. He led a high-profile campaign against banks suspected of money laundering and fraud. He had stripped dozens of banks of their licenses. His driver was also shot dead in the attack.

Kozlov was the highest-ranking federal official to be assassinated since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. His death, followed quickly by the slaying of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow and the poisoning of former domestic intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London, has sharpened concerns about the safety of people who challenge vested interests in Russia.

At a meeting Thursday of a presidential council on grass-roots activism, Putin commented, indirectly, on another contract killing, the July 2004 murder in Moscow of American journalist Paul Klebnikov. A jury acquitted two Chechens of the murder, but the Russian Supreme Court overturned the verdict and ordered a retrial.

Putin was asked at the meeting if there was a campaign in the press to discredit jury trials. "Nobody launched it, it got launched on its own," Putin said. "When they acquit in the murder case of Klebnikov, journalists do not need another signal." He said such acquittals "discredit the institution of the jury."

Prosecutors said seven people have been taken into custody in the Kozlov killing. They include the two men who allegedly carried out the killing and the driver of a getaway car, all of them Ukrainian migrant workers, according to news reports here.

The newspaper Kommersant reported earlier that the assassins were not paid for the job and began to fear for their lives. One of the three then turned himself in. Three others in custody allegedly acted as intermediaries between the killers and the person who ordered the hit.