Sick Yeltsin gains immunity

Fears for Yeltsin's health dogged his period in office

MOSCOW, Russia -- Boris Yeltsin has been granted limited immunity from prosecution by the Russian parliament.

The Federation Council upper house approved the measure regarding the former president which had already passed in the State Duma lower house.

The decision was made as Yeltsin, who celebrates his 70th birthday on Thursday, is treated in hospital for what his aides have described as an "acute viral infection."

It awaits only an already promised signature from Yeltsin's successor Vladimir Putin to become law.

Putin's first act in office after Yeltsin resigned on December 31, 1999, was to issue an edict granting the former president immunity from all prosecution, but parliament wanted the order replaced with a full-fledged law.

The new bill lets parliament lift the immunity in cases of very serious crimes.

Yeltsin has a history of health problems, including a multiple heart bypass in 1996.

But after more than a year of retirement, it is his first confinement back in the hospital where he was forced to spend much of his second term in office, suffering heart problems, a stomach ulcer, two bouts of pneumonia and several of flu.

Since leaving office, Yeltsin has published a third volume of memoirs and met former German chancellor Helmut Kohl on a book tour to Germany.

But otherwise, the man who dominated Russia for a decade has remained largely out of the public eye.

His 70th birthday is being met with television retrospectives but little official fanfare.

"Papa wanted to celebrate the anniversary at home, without pompous banquets and receptions," his daughter Tatyana Dyachenko told the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview.

Yeltsin has also received birthday greetings from disgraced ex-German Chancellor Kohl, who said his "service to world peace" was not well enough appreciated.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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December 7, 2000
Books
Ailing Yeltsin unveils memoirs
October 20, 2000

The Government of the Russian Federation
Kremlin
Britannica.com: Yeltsin, Boris

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