[Deathwatch] Alexander Lebed, Russian Politician, 52

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Russian politician killed in crash
April 28, 2002 Posted: 10:09 AM EDT (1409 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/28/russia.lebed/index.html

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Alexander Lebed, who played an important role
in foiling the 1991 coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and
ran for president against Boris Yeltsin five years later, has died in a
helicopter crash, officials said. 

The 52-year-old governor of the vast Krasnoyarsk territory of Siberia
died in hospital after the Mi-8 in which he was travelling came down on
Sunday morning near the town of Abakan, about 3,400 km (2,100 miles)
east of Moscow, Russian television reported. 

There were 19 people, including a three-member crew, aboard the
helicopter when it crashed after hitting a power line, The Associated
Press reported the Emergency Situations Ministry in Moscow as saying.
Seven, including Lebed, died, and 12 were in critical condition in
hospital, a ministry official said. 

CNN's Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty said the pugnacious, outspoken
action man was hugely popular.

"Built like a bear and hands like a vice, he was gruff, outspoken and
didn't kowtow to anyone," she said. "This came across on TV and really
appealed to Russians." 

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to the families
of all those killed in the crash, the ITAR-Tass news agency said. 

A military man for most of his life, Lebed first gained fame during the
August 1991 coup against Gorbachev. The coup leaders ordered him to
send in his paratroopers to surround the headquarters of Russian
President Boris Yeltsin. He refused, a move that to a large degree led
to the coup's collapse. 

In 1995 after a dispute with the defence minister Lebed was forced to
retire from the military. The father of three turned to politics and
won a seat in parliament. A year later, he ran for president, coming in
third. Yeltsin named him head of the Presidential Security Council
where he brokered an end to the first war in the breakaway republic of
Chechnya. 

In 1998 Lebed was elected governor of Krasnoyarsk, an area four times
the size of France, where he quickly ruffled feathers, falling foul of
local business barons who helped him become governor but whom he later
called "mafia." Lebed called in police investigators from Moscow to
help stamp his authority. 

Alexei Arbatov, deputy head of parliamentary defence committee, said
Lebed's passing was likely to upset a shaky political balance in the
region which hinged to a vast degree on the charismatic governor's
popularity. 

"Passions will be boiling and big money will come into play," Arbatov
told Ekho Moskvy radio. "In a region like Krasnoyarsk, the life and
fate of large capitals, groupings and influential individuals depend on
the governor. 

Arbatov said Lebed had made many enemies in Krasnoyarsk and said the
crash might have been orchestrated by one of them. 

But CNN's Dougherty said all the early signs were that the crash was an
accident. 

There were journalists on board, too, she said, the weather was bad and
it appeared the helicopter had simply flown into the power lines in
near-zero visibility. 

A commission to investigate the crash, headed by Emergency Situations
Minister Sergei Shoigu, has been set up, Interfax reported. 

-- CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty contributed to this report