Yeltsin branded a criminal

Russia's former chief prosecutor, a stern Siberian lawyer who helped put Boris Yeltsin at the centre of Soviet politics in 1989, yesterday accused Mr Yeltsin of turning the Kremlin into a court of toadies and committing a crime by calling in tanks last October, Andrew Higgins writes from Moscow.

The attack, among the most bitter against Mr Yeltsin by a swelling army of estranged allies, was made by Alexei Kazannik, who resigned earlier last month after five months in the job. 'The present authorities have no moral basis, pure egoistic interests prevail,' he told Komsomolskaya Pravda.