MOSCOW, March 5 (AFP) - The international environmental organisation Greenpeace called for the sacking Monday of Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov after a leaked document highlighted his dubious business activities.
Greenpeace called on the State Duma (lower house) to reject Adamov-backed plans for Russia to import nuclear waste after it obtained a leaked report by the Duma's anti-corruption committee outlining his multi-million-dollar dealings.
"Adamov must be sacked immediately and all the commercial activities of the Ministry of Atomic Energy must be investigated before it is too late to stop this dangerous scheme to turn Russia into a nuclear waste dump," Tobias Muenchmeyer of Greenpeace told AFP.
As an employee of the atomic energy ministry (Minatom), Adamov is forbidden to have any private business activities, and two years ago he told the Duma that he had "never received any business income" since becoming a minister in 1998.
However, the 20-page document posted by Greenpeace on its website (www.greenpeace.ru) lists dozens of money-making activities carried out by Adamov through a web of companies in Russia and abroad.
The report also alleges that Adamov, who from 1986 to 1999 headed NIKIET, a top secret technology institute that developed Chernobyl-style nuclear reactors, had violated many security and legal regulations.
Adamov created "various commercial organisations in Moscow and abroad and continues to be actively involved in entrepreneurial activities," it said.
And Greenpeace explicitly linked Adamov's "illegal" commercial activities with the controversial bill to allow nuclear waste imports, due to get a second reading in the Duma on March 22.
"The nuclear waste plan has always been Adamov's favoured project and is supported by the Russian government for merely commercial reasons, despite genuine safety fears," Muenchmeyer told AFP.
The government says the amended legislation would permit Russia to sign contracts with China, Germany, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan, earning 21 billion dollars over the next 10 years.
The bill was passed on its first reading in December.
The Duma's anti-corruption chairman Nikolai Kovalyov conceded Monday that it had carried out an investigation into Adamov's business dealings and sent a report to Russia's top prosecutor on February 28.
The prosecutor had until March 8 to consider the material before deciding whether to initiate legal action, he added.
"But I think it is possible to see a political aspect (to the Greenpeace report) and a link to the legislation on nuclear waste imports," Kovalyov told AFP.
The ministry of atomic energy flatly denied Monday any wrongdoing on Adamov's part and said the media reports were part of an international conspiracy to discredit the Russian government.
"Everybody knows where Greenpeace gets its money from, and how that money allows them to spread lies about the atomic energy ministry," said spokesman Yury Bespalko.
However, Greenpeace's Russian spokesman Ivan Blokov appealed to Duma members to reconsider their support for the nuclear waster bill in the light of the leaked report.
"This is a wake-up call for the Duma members who voted in favour of Adamov's multi-billion-dollar proposal. They must now throw out the proposal which is nothing more than a money-making scehem for Adamov and the rest of the Russian nuclear mafia," he said.