GENEVA AP The man accused of heading a Russian mafia organization had so much influence that he could get a hostage released in Chechnya ``with a few telephone calls'' a Swiss court heard Tuesday. A Swiss police inspector testified that when arrested two years ago at Geneva airport Sergei Mikhailov was carrying two passports from Russia one from Israel and a diplomatic passport from Costa Rica. Officers later found false papers from Greece and Portugal and a passport from Guyana believed to have been bought for thousands of dollars. He also lived in Austria and Belgium during the 1990s and had been banned from entering both France and the Czech Republic said Police Inspector Patrick Scheurer. Mikhailov whose trial opened Monday is accused of being a member of a criminal organization. Prosecutors say he is the head of the Solntsevskaya mafia in Moscow which has 1700 members and the power to take over entire institutions in the city. Mikhailov denies the charge as well as one relating to the purchase of his villa which allegedly broke the Swiss laws on foreigners buying property. The trial has seen unprecedented security measures with the court ringed by police sheets at the windows to stop people seeing in and bullet-proof vests for Mikhailov and some of the witnesses. The court late Tuesday agreed that three witnesses believed to be particularly at risk could give evidence by video link from an adjacent room the first time this has happened in Geneva. Former Russian police major Nikolai Oporov and two Russians under FBI protection will only be seen by the judge and jury so that no one else can recognize them. After two failed attempts by the defense to stop the trial Monday Scheurer took the stand as the first prosecution witness. He said witnesses would tell how Mikhailov had arranged for the release of the brother of a business partner who was being held by a gang in the Russian break-away republic of Chechnya. ``With a few phone calls he managed to rescue the brother'' said Scheurer adding this showed how much influence Mikhailov had with other criminal gangs. Scheurer said in Mikhailov's lavish villa near Geneva police found illegal listening equipment cash totaling 47000 Swiss francs dlrs 33500 and photographs of Mikhailov with other known criminals. One showed him standing with the son of Vyacheslav Ivankov the mafia godfather known as Yaponchik who is currently in prison in the United States. Scheurer also described how police had become suspicious about how Mikhailov was conducting his affairs from inside his prison cell. ``He never wanted to telephone he didn't write he received no visits except from his lawyers'' he said. One of Mikhailov's lawyers was later arrested as he left the prison and was found to be carrying letters which had not been passed by the censor. The trial is expected to last at least a fortnight. Mikhailov who has been in custody for more than two years faces a maximum of seven-and-a-half years in prison. UR; nk-cn File Stored As: GVW0108 nkoppel 576 12-01 18:46 ri BC-Switzerland-Russia-Mafia Trial 1 APW19981201.0927.txt.body.html APW19981201.0575.txt.body.html