The former chairman and chief executive of bankrupt US energy giant Enron has resigned from the company’s board of directors, cutting his last tie beyond stock ownership to the firm he nurtured for 16 years.

Former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay pulled out of this week’s scheduled congressional testimony as members of Congress suggested he and other company executives engaged in widespread criminality.

Two members of Congress today said Enron could face prosecution after claiming the company manufactured income out of its off-the-books partnership deals that led to financial disaster.

Since Enron Corp filed the largest US bankruptcy in history last year, the company has used its two jets for eight round-trip flights to New York where the case was filed, a spokesman said.

A former vice chairman of Enron, the giant US energy company that is the world’s biggest bankrupt, was found shot dead in a car today in an apparent suicide, police said.