Fraud Accusations and Court Case
Allegations that Kasyanov took a two percent commission in exchange for ignoring bribes and illegal business ventures whilst he was working at the Ministry of Finance between 1993 and 1999 led to him being dubbed as "Misha 2 percent" in the Russian media. In Russia's uncertain economic future, written for the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, the allegations are described as credible, and a Spiegel article from 2007 notes that Kasyanov insists that his only earnings as a public servant was his government salary and he was only involved in one private business venture since leaving the post of prime minister. The same article also claims that Kasyanov purchased the state-owned dacha of former Communist Party of the Soviet Union ideologue Mikhail Suslov which was worth several million euros.
On 11 July 2005, the Russian Office of Public Prosecutor started to investigate the privatization of two houses formerly owned by the government. According to allegations first made by the journalist and State Duma member Aleksandr Hinshtein, two luxury government houses had been put up for sale in 2003 by a Kasyanov decree. According to the court verdict of 16 March 2007, he was to return a house and pay 108,135,000 rubles in damages to the government for using the property illegally (approx. USD 4,150,000 or €3,130,000). In 2007, Kasyanov was still planning to appeal.
Read more about this topic: Mikhail Kasyanov
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