Russia charges woman over central banker's murder
Source: Reuters
MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors on Thursday charged a women in connection with the murder of first deputy central bank chairman Andrei Kozlov, Itar-Tass news agency quoted the women's lawyer as saying. Liana Askerova's lawyer said she had been charged as an accomplice to last September's murder. Kozlov, who spearheaded a fight against money laundering in Russia's secretive financial world, was gunned down after playing in a soccer game between central bank officials and other bankers. On Wednesday prosecutors charged Alexei Frenkel with ordering the hit. Frenkel was the former head of a private bank that Kozlov had closed down three months before he died. Bringing his killer or killers to justice has become a matter of political importance. His murder, one of the highest profile assassinations of an official under President Vladimir Putin, brought back memories of the murky contract killings of the 1990s. It cast a shadow over a Putin's claim to have overseen a revival of law and order in the country. Kozlov, a father of three, made his name withdrawing the licenses of banks that broke central bank rules. Prosecutors say dozens of tiny banks are used to launder billions of dollars of criminal money each year.
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