Russian Police Raid Media-Most

News reports said investigators also gathered documents from the NTV television network, one of Media-Most’s holdings, and the Gazprom state gas monopoly, which owns part of NTV.

“The investigators were interested in records of securities deposits, assessments of the value of Media-Most, the company’s audits and so on,” a Media-Most spokesman told Reuters.

Media-Most, Russia’s only independent national media network, has been the subject of government investigations for a series of alleged offenses, ranging from breach of privacy to embezzlement.

Today’s operation was the second government action against Media-Most in three months.

In June, Media-Most owner Vladimir Gusinsky was arrested on charges of defrauding the government. Though he was released four days later, international concern arose that the arrest was retaliation for Media-Most’s criticism of Kremlin policies.

Today, Media-Most lawyer Pavel Astakhov told reporters police action was aimed at keeping the company quiet.

“[An] investigator … said he can confiscate any documents he considers necessary,” Astakhov said. “There is only one goal — to paralyze the activity of Media-Most and the mass media that are a part of the holding.”

Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily Kolmogorov said today’s action was business as usual for this sort of investigation.

“These are ordinary investigative activities, carried out within the limits of a criminal case that has been opened,” he told Russia’s Interfax news agency.

But Astakhov said in today’s raid, investigators tried to seize documents without cataloging what was being confiscated.

Interfax quoted prosecutors as saying the seizure of documents was part of their investigation of Gusinsky. He is accused defrauding the government of $10 million, but officials have provided no details of the charges.