Spectacular accidents are so common along Moscow's broad avenues, where drivers weave through multiple lanes at high speed, that they rarely merit public attention. But when a private car forced a speeding government Volga sedan into oncoming traffic last week, causing the Volga to sideswipe another car, somersault across four lanes and knock down a tree, some Russian officials called the crash an assassination attempt. Why? The Volga carried Sergei Shakhrai, former Russian Deputy Prime Minister and President Boris Yeltsin's top lawyer in a court case that will decide the fate of the Communist Party.
Shakhrai, who is trying to prove...