Rebel leader charged over White House disturbances: Disgraced former Soviet general could face 15-year jail sentence

A HARDLINE former Soviet army general, who led the assault on the Ostankino television centre that provoked Boris Yeltsin to storm the White House last week, was charged yesterday with organising mass disturbances. Albert Makashov, the first rebel leader to be charged, faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted.

Evidence is still being collected against Mr Yeltsin's main enemies - the former vice-president, Alexander Rutskoi, and the former parliamentary chairman, Ruslan Khasbulatov - who are being held in the old KGB's top-security prison. Lawyers believe that treason charges, which carry the death penalty, might be hard to press, since the two men, like the leaders of the 1991 coup attempt before them, were already in power and would argue that they could hardly have been trying to seize power. Like cashiered General Makashov, Mr Rutskoi and Mr Khasbulatov might be accused of organising mass disturbances, which is easier to prove.

The opening of criminal proceedings against Mr Makashov marks the ignominious end to his career. In the elections of June 1991, he ran as a presidential candidate against Mr Yeltsin. But by August of that year, he had shown his sympathy for the coup plotters, for which he was dismissed from the army. After that, he associated with the 'red- browns', the uneasy alliance of neo- Communists and fascists, and commanded the gunmen holed up in the White House after the President dissolved the Soviet-era parliament and called new elections.

Mr Yeltsin yesterday scotched suggestions that the parliamentary elections might be put off to next year and combined with a presidential poll and insisted the new assembly must be elected first and in December as scheduled.

On Tuesday a member of the presidential council, Georgy Satarov, said that since time was short to organise parliamentary elections before Christmas, they might be postponed to March. To avoid accusations that he was trying to prolong authoritarian rule, Mr Yeltsin might bring the vote for the presidency forward to March, Mr Satarov added.

But the idea of simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections in the spring was unlikely to find favour with Mr Yeltsin. After the storming of the White House and the loss of over 170 lives, the President could hardly adopt their scheme, however rational.

Mr Yeltsin wants the new assembly to adopt a constitution giving Russia a strong presidency on the French model. Only then will he feel he has created a solid new political system and he can stand for re-election himself or retire to make way for a younger president. On this last point, his decision has not yet been made public.