Former prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said Wednesday he had begun legal action against US presidential candidate George W. Bush over an allegation that he had pocketed IMF loans to Russia.
Chernomyrdin said he had lodged a protest with Russian prosecutors and his lawyers were poised to sue Bush in the US courts, vowing to press ahead whatever the outcome of the November 7 presidential poll.
"I said I would sue him and I am doing so: I have written to the Russian prosecutor general's office," Chernomyrdin told reporters.
"With the assistance of lawyers, we are also preparing legal action in the United States," the ex-prime minister added, without saying when that would begin.
"If it is ready today, I will lodge it today, if Friday then Friday...As soon as the lawsuit is ready, I will submit it," he said.
"The elections in the United States are not my problem, these elections have nothing to do with me.
"I don't care who Bush Junior will be when the lawsuit is lodged. Even if in the meantime he has been elected president, I will press ahead with it," Chernomyrdin said.
He added that the International Monetary Fund loans that Bush's accusation referred to had been disbursed when he "was no longer working in the government."
Chernomyrdin, now a deputy in the State Duma (lower house of parliament) was prime minister under Boris Yeltsin from December 1992 to March 1998.
"The fact that Bush does not know that is a real shame for a candidate" for the US presidency," he said.
In a debate on October 11 with Democratic White House hopeful Vice President Al Gore, Bush said that Chernomyrdin had pocketed funds paid to Moscow by the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF said it had no evidence to support Bush's claim that its funds had found their way into Chernomyrdin's hands -- MOSCOW (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
