STATE DUMA COMMISSION HOLDS FIRST HEARING ON YELTSIN IMPEACHMENT.

The parliamentary commission on impeaching President Yeltsin met yesterday to examine the first of five charges against him. The commission’s task is not to determine the president’s guilt, merely to decide whether there is a case for him to answer before the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council. The first charge, with which the commission began yesterday, accuses Yeltsin of committing high treason when he signed the December 1991 Belovezhskaya Pushcha accords that dissolved the USSR. (For the list of charges in full, see Pravda, July 24) For the prosecution, Communist deputy Viktor Ilyukhin argued that this was a premeditated move aimed at destroying the Soviet Union and seizing power. After yesterday’s meeting, the commission broke up and will not meet again until August 17.

YELTSIN ORDERS SALE OF GAZPROM SHARES.