Kremlin pledges to stand up for billionaire held in France

MOSCOW/PARIS: The Kremlin said on Wednesday it will spare no effort to defend the rights of Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian businessman and lawmaker who was arrested in the French Riviera resort of Nice in connection with a French tax evasion case.
Shares in Polyus, Russia’s biggest gold producer which is controlled by Kerimov’s family, were down on the news of his detention. The 51-year-old billionaire would be presented to a judge with a view to formally placing him under judicial investigation, a French public prosecutor said in Nice on Wednesday.
Under France’s legal system, being formally placed under investigation often, but not always, leads to a person being sent to trial.
"We will do everything in our power to protect his lawful interests," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters.
A representative for Kerimov in the upper house of parliament, where he sits as a lawmaker, declined to comment on the case on Wednesday when contacted by Reuters. Polyus declined to comment.
Russia’s state-run Rossiya 24 TV station, citing an unnamed source, reported that Kerimov had denied any guilt.
In the lower house of parliament, lawmaker Rizvan Kurbanov asked the Russian foreign ministry to make representations on Kerimov’s behalf with the French authorities.