Ex-Kremlin aide Pavel Borodin, facing charges in Switzerland of money-laundering, left the country today on a plane bound for Moscow after posting five million Swiss francs (2.92 million dollars) in bail.
An airport official said Mr Borodin departed from Geneva's Cointrin airport at 1 p.m. on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow, after arriving at the airport accompanied by Russian diplomats. Mr Borodin was not seen by photographers, who only saw a limousine drive up to the waiting aircraft.
"Yes, he is on board. It is a very discreet departure", Mr Francois Villard, the duty airport manager, told reporters. The plane was delayed byroughly two hours as the flight waited for passengers arriving from Zurich, airport officials said.
Mr Borodin was detained for just a week in Switzerland after arriving on April 7th from the United States where he had been held since January 17th following a Swiss request for extradition.
Mr Borodin, 54, once head of the Kremlin's vast property empire, faces allegations he took 25 million in kickbacks from Kremlin renovation contracts awarded to two Swiss companies and laundered the money through banks and offshore firms. He and the Swiss companies have denied the allegations.