Russia drops case against 'anti-Kremlin' TV mogul

Investigators have dropped the fraud case against Vladimir Gusinsky, who controls Russia's most independent television station, in a sign that the Kremlin is backing away from a confrontation widely portrayed as an attack on freedom of speech by the government.

Investigators have dropped the fraud case against Vladimir Gusinsky, who controls Russia's most independent television station, in a sign that the Kremlin is backing away from a confrontation widely portrayed as an attack on freedom of speech by the government.

A spokesman for Media-Most, the company that owns the NTV channel and other independent media outlets, vigorously denied reports that NTV would now cut back on its criticism of President Vladimir Putin and his government.

The dropping of the criminal case against Mr Gusinsky, who was jailed for four days in June, brings to an end, for the moment, the Kremlin's offensive against NTV, which began when masked police raided the headquarters of Media-Most in Moscow in May. Investigators said the case had been dropped for lack of evidence.

In the past three monthsthe authorities had prevented Mr Gusinsky from travelling abroad, frozen some of his assets and repeatedly called him in for questioning. The most obvious motive was retaliation for the failure of Mr Gusinsky's media outlets to support Mr Putin in the presidential election.

The daily Kommersant newspaper, owned by Boris Berezovsky, who has a rival media empire to Mr Gusinsky's, claimed the case had been dropped after talks during which Mr Gusinsky agreed to soften NTV's criticism of "the state and Putin personally".

The sudden end to the inquiry reinforces the impression that the Kremlin does not quite know how it is going to handle relations with "oligarchs" such as Mr Gusinsky. Over the past month it has started investigations into tax-avoidance and excessive profits from privatisation of state assets by several of Russia's biggest companies.

Many oligarchs have been invited to the Kremlin today to see Mr Putin, but Mr Gusinsky, who was not invited, has left Moscow to be with his family in Spain. Mr Putin has said he will rein in businessmen who made fortunes under former president Yeltsin through the takeoverof state assets for knockdown prices, but he has also saidhe will not reverse privatisation.

Mr Putin faces the dilemma that he would like to increase the state's power over the oligarchs, but his own rise to power was the result of support from businessmen such as Mr Berezovsky and his Kremlin allies.

* Sergei Novikov, 37, head of the only independent radio station in Smolensk, was shot dead on Wednesday after taking part in a show that discussed allegations of graft against the region's deputy governor. The murder camethe day after the chief prosecutor of Khanty-Mansiysk province was shot dead.