The arrest and detention of Mikhail
Khodorkovsky in Russia is abhorrent to common sense,
rule of law and any standard of decency. This site is
for those who have taken an interest in the YUKOS
affair and MBK, and contains day-to-day coverage - a
single source of information and news collated for
your convenience.
MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) - Former Czech president Vaclav Havel, Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Vondra and 24 other prominent Czechs have signed an open letter declaring Mikhail Khodorkovsky a political prisoner and appealing for support for the former Yukos CEO.
The imprisonment of Khodorkovsky, who was "selectively convicted," was "the result of political manipulation," the Khodorkovsky Press Center website quoted the letter as saying.
The letter, which appeared in leading Prague newspapers on Wednesday, said Khodorkovsky had been jailed because he "openly expressed sympathy with the Russian political opposition" and criticized "the dubious economic views of the Kremlin."
MOSCOW Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been transferred to a one-man prison cell as part of the authorities campaign of intimidation against the man who was once Russias richest, his lawyer said Thursday.
Khodorkovskys transfer to the single-person cell Wednesday night came after an incident last week when another prisoner slashed him in the face while he slept.
Prison authorities said keeping Khodorkovsky away from other convicts at the Siberian prison where he is serving his sentence was needed for his personal safety.
Lawyer Yury Schmidt told reporters that his client was being punished.
This is an attempt to demoralize, to discredit Khodorkovsky, he said.
He said the move will deprive him of interacting with other people and taking advantage of prison facilities, such as the TV room.
What (Khodorkovsky) was most afraid of was to be transferred to a one-man cell, he said.
The founder of the Yukos oil company arrived at the prison camp in October to begin serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud. Yukos once Russias largest oil company has been all but carved up by the state.
Probably it didnt seem enough for them; to give him eight years, to send him to the end of the world, to deprive him of normal human conditions ... they continue to be afraid of him, Schmidt said.
The lawyer also said the slashing which left Khodorkovsky with a relatively deep cut on his face and required stitches was orchestrated by prison authorities, and he alleged that prison officials later found the attacker in possession of three knives.
A spokesman for the Federal Prison Service declined to comment on the allegations.
MOSCOW Judges at Moscows Simonovsky District Court on Wednesday sentenced Svetlana Bakhmina, a former deputy head of Yukos legal department, to seven years in prison after finding her guilty of embezzlement and tax evasion.
A mother of two young children, Bakhmina, 36, is the latest in a series of several senior Yukos officials to be jailed since the company came under attack three years ago. Last year, the companys former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were handed sentences of eight years in prison on tax evasion and fraud charges.
The length of the prison term makes Bakhmina ineligible for release under a current amnesty for mothers sentenced to prison terms of six years or less.
They did it on purpose, so the amnesty would not apply, said Pavel Ivlev, a friend of Bakhminas and a lawyer with ties to Yukos who left Russia for New York in the fall of 2004, citing fears of prosecution. This means that as well as the 1 1/2 years she has already been in jail, she will have to serve a minimum of 2 1/2 years more in jail before becoming eligible for parole, Ivlev said.
The judges found Bakhmina guilty of embezzling some 8 billion rubles ($290 million) of assets belonging to Yukos subsidiary Tomskneft in the late 1990s. Bakhmina has denied the charges since her arrest on Dec. 8, 2004.
Judges on Wednesday refused to give Bakhmina a suspended sentence, which would have left her formally convicted but would free her from jail. Courts have the option of freeing mothers of young children on compassionate grounds. Bakhmina has two sons Fyodor, 4, and Grigory, 8.
Ivlev said that he was sure that Bakhmina had done nothing wrong.
Just because the system finds it unpleasant to acknowledge its mistakes, they decided that she should stay in jail, Ivlev said.
Late Wednesday, there appeared to be some confusion regarding the kind of prison Bakhmina would be sent to.
In reading the sentence, the chief judge said Bakhmina was to be sent to a maximum-security prison. Prosecutor Nikolai Vlasov, who represented the Prosecutor Generals Office in the case, said later, however, that the judge should have said Bakhmina would be sent to a standard prison.
I think a technical mistake took place and the court in fact sentenced her to standard imprisonment. The judge must have made a slip of the tongue, Vlasov said, Interfax reported. He did not explain how he knew the contents of the verdict.
Vlasov said prosecutors would not dispute Wednesdays ruling.
I think that the court was able to sort out a complicated criminal case and made a fair decision, he said.
Bakhminas defense team said it would appeal the verdict and the sentence.
Of course we will appeal the verdict, Bakhminas lawyer Olga Kozyreva told reporters after the verdict and sentence were delivered Wednesday, Interfax reported.
Throughout her detention and trial, Bakhmina argued that her position at Yukos had not given her the powers to make it possible for her to commit the crimes she was accused of.
In her final address to the court before the verdict was read out, Bakhmina pleaded with the judges to deliver a fair verdict. She also said that whatever she did while working at Yukos, she did it at the request of her superiors.
I was not empowered to make any decision on my own. ... I did not have the power of attorney, she told the judges, Interfax reported.
Bakhmina is the first woman to be jailed in the series of prosecutions against Yukos employees and executives that began in 2003.
Since Bakhminas detention, investigators have appeared to show little regard for the plight of her children. Last year, Bakhmina went on a hunger strike after her custodians in a Moscow pre-trial detention center refused to allow her to make paid telephone calls to her sons.
Ivlev on Wednesday called the authorities actions against Yukos and some of its employees a crime.
All these people people in the Kremlin, the judges, the investigators are committing crimes. And it is they who should answer before the law, Ivlev said by telephone.
A total of 35 people Yukos owners, employees and subcontractors have so far been charged, arrested or convicted, according to Khodorkovskys online press center. In the most recent development, prosecutors earlier this month arrested Vasily Aleksanyan, Bakhminas former boss at Yukos legal department. At the time of his arrest, Aleksanyan had just been appointed executive vice president and was the companys most senior employee in Moscow.
A Russian court has sentenced a lawyer for embattled oil firm Yukos to seven years in prison for embezzlement. Svetlana Bakhmina was arrested in 2004 and accused of asset-stripping at the firm's Tomskneft subsidiary.
Prosecutors have controversially sought a nine-year jail sentence for Mrs Bakhmina, who has two small children.
Yukos has been gradually dismantled amid a concerted state campaign against alleged corruption and tax evasion.
Ongoing battle
Former chief executive Mikhail Khordokovsky is serving an eight-year jail sentence in Siberia after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion. A district court has recently ruled that his continued solitary confinement was illegal.
Yukos' most senior Russian executive, Vasili Aleksanyan, was recently arrested and accused of money laundering.
The sentence was pronounced against Mrs Bakhmina by district court Judge Tatyana Korneyeva after reading out the lengthy verdict in court.
The Yukos employee was accused of stealing property worth $300m from Tomskneft, a former upstream unit which oversaw exploration, production and processing of oil.
Tomskneft assets were frozen in late 2004, months after Mr Khordokovsky was arrested.
Mrs Bakhmina, deputy head of the firm's Moscow legal department, has denied all the charges.
Bankruptcy threat
Yukos is currently trying to stave off bankruptcy, after a consortium of foreign banks accused it of defaulting on loan repayments.
Yukos' prinicipal assets have been seized and sold off over the past eighteen months after the authorities accused it of huge tax evasion and sought to recover $32bn.
Once one of Russia's most powerful employers, Yukos is a shadow of its former size, although it still produces 600,000 barrels of oil a day.
Yukos has accused the authorities of mounting an extra-judicial and politically motivated campaign against the firm.
Schmidt speaking at a news conference Thursday. He said the knife attack on Khodorkovksy was part of a plot.
The knife attack on Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his transfer Wednesday to a single jail cell were part of a plot to force him into solitary confinement, his lawyer Yury Shmidt said Thursday.
Federal Prison Service officials said Wednesday that Khodorkovsky was transferred to a single cell for his own safety after having his nose cut last week in an attack by a fellow prisoner. He would have "all comforts, including a desk and a television set," officials said.
Shmidt, however, disputed prison officials' claims, saying that Khodorkovsky had in fact been moved to a cell in the Chita region prison's punishment block.
Prison authorities filmed Khodorkovsky's cell transfer, Shmidt said, citing another Khodorkovsky lawyer, Natalya Terekhova. The reason for the filming was not clear, but Shmidt suggested that the footage could end up being broadcast on national television as part of a state-sponsored program designed to give the impression that Khodorkovsky was doing well.
Shmidt said that Khodorkovsky had been in fear of being transferred to a single cell, as even small freedoms such as being able to walk from one room to another were much-valued in prison.
"Khodorkovsky has not felt and does not feel threatened while staying with other prisoners," Shmidt said. The only people Khodorkovsky could expect an attack from were far away, Shmidt said.
"He is expecting nasty stuff from [President Vladimir] Putin and [deputy Kremlin chief of staff Igor] Sechin. The rest are pawns and nobodies," Shmidt said.
Khodorkovsky last year accused Sechin, who also serves as chairman of Rosneft, of being the architect of the state's legal onslaught against Yukos.
Shmidt also lashed out at Western governments, accusing them of indifference to the fate of his client and the Yukos oil company he once headed.
"The West's behavior is shameful," Shmidt told journalists at a news conference. "Our liberties, our rights, were sold for a barrel of oil and a cubic meter of gas.
"I keep trying to speak out and journalists listen. But politicians stay silent. It feels like a voice in the wilderness."
The Simonovsky Court in Moscow found deputy head of the YUKOS-Moscow legal department Svetlana Bakhmina guilty of embezzlement and tax evasion yesterday and sentenced her to seven years in prison. Judge Tatyana Korneeva began her seven-hour reading of the verdict in the case by saying that Bakhmina committed embezzlement in especially large volume (8 billion rubles) as part of a criminal group that consisted of her, former head of the YUKOS legal department Dmitry Gololobov and "persons unknown" in a scheme involving assets of YUKOS affiliate Tomskneft, which were sold to dummy companies belonging to YUKOS. The verdict repeated the findings of prosecutor Nikolay Vlasov practically word for word. A Tomskneft representative stated at the trial stated that no embezzlement had taken place and that the company has no claims against Bakhmina. Bakhmina was also accused of tax evasion for the nonpayment of 606,000 rubles' taxes on insurance annuities received in 2001 and 2002. The court noted that Bakhmina did not acknowledge her guilt and "indicated that she worked under the leadership of Vasily Alexanyan [now a vice president of YUKOS, who was arrested April 7] and she also received instructions from Gololobov, she did not have the right to sign documents, she did not know anything about anyone's plans to embezzle the property of Tomskneft and she was never instructed to implement criminal plans. Tomskneft property was not entrusted to her, she did not manage it [property] and was not authorized in managerial issues. She did not pay taxes because insurance payments are not taxable." After that, the judge spent several hours listing the testimony of witness and contents of documents.
Many witnesses, even those for the prosecution, stated that Bakhmina, who was also a member of the Tomskneft board of directors, had no decisive role in company affairs and made no decisions. Her lawyers were clearly unprepared for the outcome of the case. The court, taking into account that Bakhmina is the mother of two small children, that she paid the tax arrears in the course of the trial, as well as the state of her health and general character, sentenced her to six and a half years' imprisonment for embezzlement and two years for tax evasion. It then found it possible to partially merge the sentences for a total of seven years. The court found no basis for amnesty.
Bakhmina listened to the verdict and sentence impassively. Her lawyers did not comment immediately after the conclusion of the hearing, but later promised to appeal the sentence. Prosecutor Vlasov called the court's verdict a right decision and said that it was "not the first or last" YUKOS case. The prosecution had asked for nine years' imprisonment. Gololobov, who is wanted in the same case, called the sentence senseless and merciless.
A vicious prison assault on Mikhail Khodorkovsky bears the hallmarks of Soviet-era tactics, says one man who should know
By YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW
The Kremlin may have hoped that by jailing Mikhail Khodorkovsky on tax evasion charges, they would eliminate any political challenge represented by the oil tycoon. Instead, the prison experience may be honing Khodorkovsky's credentials as a future challenger to President Putin and, say his lawyer and a former KGB man who worked for his oil company, prompting the authorities to resort to some old Soviet tricks to stop him.
Khodorkovsky could be forgiven for feeling like he'd been thrust back into the Soviet gulag: Sentenced to eight years in a Siberian labor camp at Krasnokamensk, Khodorkovsky has been denied access to any intellectual activity. Access to books has been denied, and television is available only in the facility's recreation room, where other prisoners prefer watching soap operas. Khodorkovsky spends every day from 6am till 10pm doing senseless manual labor and taking courses on glove-stitching. He is under constant monitoring by a team sent from Moscow of officials from the prisons department and the FSB (the security service that succeeded the KGB). He has twice been locked in solitary confinement, once for being in possession of a copy of camp regulations published in a newspaper, and once for having a cup of tea with Alexander Kuchma, 22, occupant of the neighboring bed in his 100-person barrack. These charges, says Khodorkovsky lawyer Yuri Schmidt, enable the authorities to deny the prisoner a more lenient regime and eventual parole. (Indeed, state prosecutors still threaten to press money laundering charges that could add another decade to Khodorkovsky's prison term.) But on Wednesday, a Krasnokamensk court ruled his first lockdown unlawful, and his lawyers are appealing the second charge.
Khodorkovsky's prison experience turned bloody last Friday at 3am, when Kuchma slahed the tycoon's nose with a cobbler's knife. "I wanted to cut his eye out," Kuchma acknowledged, when interrogated by the camp administration on the assault. "But my hand slipped." Kuchma said he assaulted Khodorkovsky, because he was afraid of an imminent transfer to a different barrack, where he would have been in trouble with other prisoners he hoped the assault would result in his being placed in solitary confinement until the transfer situation dissipates. (After the assault, he was indeed sent to solitary confinement for ten days. A source in the Federal Penitentiary Agency (FSIN) told the Interfax wire agency that afterwards Kuchma would be transferred to another penal colony. Khodorkovsky referred to Kuchma as 'unstable.'
FSIN Director Yuri Kalinin immediately denied that the knifing had occurred. He insisted that Khodorkovsky's wounds had been sustained in a brawl with Kuchma. Then, five days later, Kalinin blamed Khodorkovsky for the assault. "Now I can say that Khodorkovsky to a certain extent has provoked this situation himself," Kalinin told the press. "He should not have grown so attached to young prisoners, brought them so close to himself, or been so affectionate to them." Kalinin ordered Khodorkovsky into solitary confinement 'to ensure his own safety. Following Kalinin's insinuations, the Interfax wire agency quoted an unnamed FSIN source as saying that Kuchma had submitted a written statement accusing Khodorkovsky of sexual harassment. Comments Schmidt: "They have cynically used the assault at Khodorkovsky to isolate him under the excuse of protection, and apply Soviet tactics of character assassination."
One expert in Soviet-era prison tactics sees a familiar pattern in the assault on Khodorkovsky. Alexei Kondaurov, a retired KGB major-general, a former official of Khodorkovsky's oil company, Yukos, and current member of the Russian legislature, recalls how other convicts, often mentally unstable, were recruited as agents and placed around a target prisoner. They don't need orders to assault a prisoner singled out by the administration for harsh treatment, Kondaurov says. “They just do it to seek lenience and rewards.“
One reason for turning the screws on Khodorkovsky may be that in prison, his political star seems to be rising. Recent opinion polls have shown growing sympathy for Khodorkovsky even among sections of the public that had previously dismissed him simply as another unscrupulous oligarch. "The Kremlin fears that Khodorkovsky will emerge from prison to unite left and right democratic opposition groups,“ Kondaurov speculates. If so, Khodorkovsky may be in grave danger: “He'll either walk out of the camp as the winner,“ says Kondaurov. “Or they'll carry him out feet first."
His persecution may have actually helped Khodorkovsky's image in the eyes of ordinary Russians. Unlike other oligarchs who went abroad with the billions they'd amassed during the Yeltsin years, the Yukos tycoon returned to face a crooked trial and prison. In many an eye, that may have transformed him from yet another sleazy oligarch into the latter-day equivalent of that Soviet-era icon of dissent: a prisoner of conscience. "The Kremlin has done free campaigning for him," quips legislator Alexei Mitrophanov.
Now 42, Khodorkovsky may return to Russian society in his prime at 50, toughened by his experience and hungry for action. A charismatic, enlightened, modern and fearless leader, the like of which Russia has never seen, may indeed emerge. If he survives the camps, that is.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky will not press criminal charges against a cellmate who attacked him with a knife, Interfax news agency quoted one of his legal team as saying on Sunday.
The tycoon's lawyer said he needed stitches after a fellow inmate at his Siberian prison camp slashed him with a cobbler's knife while he slept. Prison authorities said no knife was involved and Khodorkovsky just had a scratch on his nose.
"Khodorkovsky has refused to press criminal charges against the person who wounded him," Interfax quoted one of his lawyers, Natalya Terekhova, as saying. "We will respect his wishes."
Founder of the YUKOS oil company and once Russia's richest man, Khodorkovsky is serving eight years for fraud and tax evasion.
He says he was framed by enemies in the Kremlin who felt he was becoming too powerful. Officials say he is a corrupt businessman who was convicted in a fair trial.
Terekhova said Khodorkovsky had been moved out of the prison sick bay and back into the barracks he shares with dozens of other inmates.
Khodorkovsky's supporters say they believe the Kremlin is trying to break his spirit and was behind the assault, though they have produced no hard evidence to support this.
"In the prison everything is observed around the clock and without an order from above such an attack would not be possible," Germany's Focus magazine quoted Leonid Nevzlin, one of Khodorkovsky's closest business partners, as saying.
"Even before this, everything was done to make Khodorkovsky's life in jail a hell," Focus quoted Nevzlin as saying in its online edition.
Prison officials said the attack, on Thursday night, was the result of an argument between Khodorkovsky and his cellmate.
Khodorkovky's 2003 arrest and a legal assault on his company alarmed many investors. It also strengthened a view in the West that President Vladimir Putin was clamping down on political and economic freedoms.
Investor confidence has since bounced back, helped by vibrant stock markets and high prices for Russia's main exports, oil and gas.
(Additional reporting by Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin)
MOSCOW (AP) - Jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been hospitalized after another prisoner slashed him in the face while he slept, his lawyer said Saturday. Yury Schmidt said the prisoner used a sharp object in the attack, which occurred sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning.
The billionaire tycoon, once Russia's richest man, required stitches and was recovering in the Siberian prison's infirmary wing, Schmidt said.
Khodorkovsky, imprisoned since October, is serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud. His Yukos oil empire was carved up by the state.
By Valeria Korchagina and Catherine Belton Staff Writers
Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky's nose was slashed early Friday by a fellow inmate while Khodorkovsky slept in a barracks in the Krasnokamensk prison colony he has been confined to for the last six months, his lawyers said.
A former prison officer in Krasnokamensk attributed the knifing to a change in the power structure at the prison, suggesting the attack was not orchestrated by state officials, as Khodorkovsky's lawyers implied may have been the case.
Still, there was uncertainty late Sunday surrounding the attack. Khodorkovsky, once the country's richest man, is serving an eight-year term in the Chita region prison after a highly politicized investigation and trial.
While Russian prisons are notorious for violence and lack of order, Khodorkovsky continues to rankle senior state officials, who are believed to have initiated the campaign against Khodorkovsky in the first place.
"I assume there are enough people within the official establishment who are frustrated by Khodorkovksy not having shown any hint of weakness," Khodorkovsky's lawyer Yury Schmidt said by telephone Sunday. "There are plenty of ways to turn one's life into hell."
Schmidt stopped short of calling the attack an assassination attempt. "The aim is unclear," he said. "It could have been done to cause pain or to mutilate."
Nikolai Moshchanits, the former prison officer, who formerly ran the prison football team and a production line where prisoners made clothes, said by telephone Sunday that Khodorkovsky's attack had been ordered by a new smotryashchy, or criminal boss, who took over the colony a few months ago. The attack, Moshchanits added, was meant to be a "provocation."
"He wanted to show to the prison authorities who was boss," Moshchanits said. "There was no danger to Khodorkovsky's life." Khodorkovsky was chosen, he said, because he was the penal colony's highest-profile inmate.
Moshchanits said the incident had been closely watched by prison officials across the country.
"A commission from Chita has already arrived, and one from Moscow is expected too. They will punish the prison officials and may even fire some. The reaction will be adequate," he said.
Natalya Terekhova, Khodorkovsky's Krasnokamensk lawyer, would not speculate on the motive behind the attack. "I am sure it is not related to any criminal activities," she said Sunday by telephone. "There has never been any reason for Khodorkovsky to be involved and there would not be."
Khodorkovsky woke early Friday with his face covered in blood, Terekhova said. "He did not see the attacker," she said. "He got up and ran to the mirror to figure out what happened. He then alerted the inmate in charge of the barrack, who in turn informed a prison officer on duty."
Khodorkovsky was taken into the colony's medical unit, where a dentist who also handles facial injuries stitched up a gash on Khodorkovsky's left nostril.
Terekhova said it became clear shortly after the incident that it was a fellow inmate who was responsible for the knifing. The lawyer referred to the inmate as Kuchma, adding that she did not know his first name. Kuchma, 23, first made it into the news in mid-March after he and Khodorkovsky were punished for drinking tea in a place deemed inappropriate by authorities.
Khodorkovsky is not planning to take legal action against the prisoner, whom Russian media Saturday inexplicably called Khodorkovsky's "young friend." In Russian, the term connotes a sexual relationship.
Terekhova said Sunday that she had seen Khodorkovsky on Saturday afternoon and that the cut looked well taken care of by the doctor and did not appear to be causing much discomfort.
Prison officials on Saturday tried to downplay the incident, saying that Kuchma and Khodorkvosky were involved in a fight that prompted Kuchma to "scratch" Khodrokovsky's nose.
"An investigation is under way, but most likely there was some sort of unpleasant situation during which the young inmate scratched Khodorkovsky's nose," a Federal Prison Service official told Interfax on Saturday. More official information was expected to be released on Monday.
But Khodorkovsky's defense lawyers were unimpressed, expressing outrage that after the attack authorities were thought to have discovered another knife and a razor blade in Kuchma's possession.
"One of the main arguments given by the authorities to justify Khodorkovsky's move to Krasnokamensk was that it would be safer for him," Anton Drel, also a Khodorkovsky lawyer, said.
Drel said Khodorkovsky's lawyers had hoped that the authorities would make sure their client was safe, but he said authorities did not appear serious about protecting him. While Khodorkovsky is routinely searched and monitored, Drel said, other prisoners appear to enjoy much more freedom inside the prison walls.
"He is not safe there," Drel said. "Other inmates probably see that justice is very selectively applied and feel that they can behave accordingly."
On Sunday, some of Khodorkovsky's supporters also voiced fears for his life.
"It was a well-planned attack," said Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who is known for her coverage of Chechnya. "There had been rumors circulating that something like that could have happened. The Kremlin is tired of having a convict filing complaints for every violation committed against him. After this attack, the Kremlin hopes that [Khodorkovsky] will calm down."
Khodorkovsky's former business partner Leonid Nevzlin, who left Russia for Israel in the fall of 2003 fearing prosecution, also appeared to have little doubt that the attack was ordered from on high.
"The Russian regime has stooped to a new low. First, they hold a show trial. Then, they throw Khodorkovsky in a remote Siberian prison, where he is being held in appalling conditions. Then, they try to eliminate him physically by exposing him to danger," Nevzlin said in an e-mailed statement Sunday.
"These tactics demand the attention of Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross," he said.
The attack came as the government onslaught against Yukos nears a crucial endgame. As the company enters bankruptcy proceedings, the oil firm's reputation is soon to be put to a new test in a trial against the oil firm's security chief, Alexei Pichugin, over the murder of the former mayor of Nefteyugansk and other attempted murders; the trial is weeks away.
Pichugin has already been sentenced to 20 years in prison for a double contract killing and a series of other attacks after a trial last year that was closed to the public. This time, prosecutors have decided that the public should hear the full details of Yukos executives' alleged crimes. The new murder trial will be open to the public.
Staff Writer Francesca Mereu contributed to this report.
Russias jailed tycoon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was attacked by another convict, Khodorkovskys lawyer announced. A young prisoner with whom the former oligarch and ex-CEO of YUKOS used to share dietary, plank bed and even a place in the lockup, tried to cut off Khodorkovsys nose by using a sharp object. The lawyers say the convict warmed his way in Khodorkovskys confidence to kill him. As to the Federal Prison Service, they dont doubt it was just an ordinary brawl of two prisoners.
The statement of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Yury Schmidt, that his client was attacked early April 14, had a penetrating wound and was hospitalized was the hot news of nearly all world agencies past weekend. It turned out later on the wound of Khodorkovsky wasnt tragically penetrating and it was treated by the medical attendant at Krasnokamensk penal colony, where once Russias richest man is serving his eight-year sentence.
Mikhail Borisovich woke up because of the violent pain in the face roughly at 5:00 a.m. Friday, said another lawyer of Khodorkovsky Natalia Terekhova. He touched his face. Having felt it was wet, he switched on the light and looked at himself in the mirror. He saw the blood and woke up the household manager, who called an operating officer on duty at colony.
Khodorkovsky was attacked by his neighbor, Kuchma, 23, who was condemned for petty stealing. The weapon was the sharpened stem of the spoon. Kuchma said he wanted to poke an eye out of Khodorkovsky but his hand trembled in the last moment.
Khodorkovsky declined to submit a complaint, saying Kuchma didnt know what he was doing.
MOSCOW, April 15 Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the jailed oil tycoon, was slashed in the face on Friday in a Siberian prison colony, his lawyers said Saturday.
The injury was not life-threatening, one of his lawyers, Yuri Schmidt, said in a telephone interview, but it raised fresh issues about Mr. Khodorkovsky's safety in a remote prison camp.
Mr. Khodorkovsky, Russia's most famous inmate, awoke during the night and found his face bloodied and cut, Mr. Schmidt said. The wound was stitched closed at the infirmary in the prison in Chita, where he is serving an eight-year sentence.
A knife and another blade were later found in a search of the possessions of an inmate suspected in the attack. Mr. Schmidt said he did not yet know all of the circumstances of the slashing, but that as far as he knew the prison service had not opened a criminal investigation.
He added that he was concerned that the attack had been premeditated by unspecified interests. "I assume that there is something behind this," he said.
The Federal Penal Service did not return several phone calls. Its spokesman was quoted by the Interfax news agency disputing Mr. Schmidt's version, saying that Mr. Khodorkovsky had quarreled with an inmate and "the young convict scratched Khodorkovsky's nose."
Once Russia's richest man, Mr. Khodorkovsky was the founder and head of the Yukos oil company and a sharp critic of the Kremlin.
His conviction last year, on charges including tax evasion and fraud, capped a long-running trial that his supporters said was a politically motivated campaign to silence challengers to President Vladimir V. Putin and to consolidate the Kremlin's hold over Russia's energy resources.
Yukos has been heavily damaged by tax charges and the forced sale of its richest oil fields, which are now owned by Rosneft, the state-controlled oil company. What is left of Yukos is in bankruptcy proceedings in Russian court.
Supporters of Mr. Khodorkovsky have long said they fear for his safety. He has been held since his arrest in 2003 and was moved to the prison camp last fall. Another of his lawyers, Robert Amsterdam, said by telephone that Russia had failed to protect him.
Russia's authorities, he said, "are not in any way achieving their duties to protect those they have incarcerated."
"We fear exactly this kind of targeting," he said. "He is a terribly exposed individual."
The Prosecutor Generals office detained Vasily Alexanyan yesterday, five days after he had been appointed vice-president of YUKOS. He was determined to get the company back under the control of Steven Theede, YUKOS president who is now abroad.
Mr. Alexanyan was arrested after the court upheld the prosecutors speculation that he had been involved in embezzlement of 12 billion rubles at Eastern Oil Company and Tomskneft and the money laundry. The prosecutors had to file a petition with the court since Vasily Alexanyan had been an attorney and could be charged only after a court sanction.
The court sided with the prosecutors who can now indict Vasily Alexanyan, the former head of the legal department of YUKOS. The official is suspected of embezzling property and stocks of Eastern Oil Company and its subsidiary, Tomskneft, worth of 12 billion rubles, as well as money laundry. Devorg Dangyan noted that the prosecutors virtually copied the accusations leveled against Svetlana Bakhmina, the deputy head of the legal department of YUKOS.
Vasily Alexanyan was arrested at his friends apartment in downtown Moscow and taken to the investigation department of the Prosecutor Generals Officer for an interrogation.
Mr. Alexanyan was appointed vice-president of YUKOS on April 1 and strove to reorganize the management structure of the oil company after two subsidiaries of the company refused to subordinate to the London office.
Mr. Aleksanyan called the charges leveled by the prosecutors unfounded and noted that they are mainly based on Svetlana Bakhminas testimony. Theres nothing but the testimony here. I am sure that they promised a more lenient penalty for her in return for the evidence. I am not judging her shes a mother of two children after all. There cant be a choice in this case.
The interrogation of the former YUKOS vice-president lasted well after 9 p.m. last night. Aleksanyans lawyer, Devorg Davgyan told the press later that the state investigator charged his client with embezzlement and money laundry. Mr. Aleksanyan was sent to a detention center yesterday, and the Basmanny Court is to consider the prosecutors application for his formal arrest today.
Prosecutors arrested Vasily Aleksanyan, acting vice president of the beleaguered Russian oil firm Yukos, while a court rejected a bid by Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky to move closer to Moscow from his remote Siberian prison.
The NTV television showed policemen pinning Aleksanyan to the floor and screaming "Down!" at him after having broken through his apartment's door.
After Aleksanyan, visibly shocked, was shown escorted to the prosecutor general's office.
"They brought (my client) this evening to the preventive detention center on the Petrovka street. He denied the accusations brought against him as absurd and told me that he intended to declare a hunger strike," his lawyer Gevorg Davgyan said.
Aleksanyan had said previously he expected to be charged with embezzlement and money laundering, allegations which he described as "absurd".
The prosecutor general's office confirmed Aleksanyan's arrest.
"Aleksanyan is under arrest as a suspect and is presently giving a statement to the prosecutor general," Interfax news agency quoted a prosecutor's spokesman as saying.
Davgyan said his client could be held for up to 48 hours as a suspect but his detention could be prolonged if charges are filed against him.
Meanwhile, a Moscow court rejected Khodorkovsky's request to be moved from the penetentiary at Chita in eastern Siberia, to a jail closer to Moscow where he can be closer to his family.
Khodorkovsky, was arrested in 2003 and sentenced last year to eight years in following a landmark trial watched closely as a litmus test of everything from judicial reform to investor's rights and Kremlin economic policy.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia's wealthiest person with fortune believed to exceed 15 billion dollars, was convicted on charges of embezzlement, massive fraud and tax evasion.
On Tuesday, Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Yuri Schmidt accused authorities of seeking to destroy his client physically at the grim prison colony, where he has twice been sentenced to solitary confinement for offenses such as drinking tea in the wrong place and possessing a copy of the ministry of justice directive on the rights of prisoners.
Critics accuse the regime of President Vladimir Putin of persecuting Khodorkovsky in an attempt to reestablish control of the state over Russia's oil reserves and sidelining someone considered too independent and politically ambitious.
The Kremlin has strongly rejected those accusations, saying the case against the company and its founder was strictly an effort to prosecute large-scale crimes.
The Yukos board, in an effort to regain control over the firm's legal assets in Russia, appointed Aleksanyan only on Tuesday to take over the firm. He was the former head of Yukos' legal department.
"It is no coincidence that the arrest concerns the person who was appointed to go to court to stop the pillage," said Yukos chairman, Steven Theede, a US citizen, who is based in London with most other members of the company's management-in-exile.
Theede has been barred from entering Russia and is in conflict with the Moscow-based management which, according to Russian media reports, favors the rapid and total dismantlement of the remainder of the Yukos oil empire.
The company's crown jewel, the oil production unit Yuganskneftegaz, was sold at auction in December 2004 in what the state said was an effort to recuperate back taxes owed by the company for several years valued at more than 20 billion dollars.
The Yugansk unit was snapped up by a never-before-heard-of group, which promptly turned around and sold it to the state-run oil giant Rosneft.
The conflict between the Moscow and London offices of YUKOS has moved to the front office. New executive vice president Vasily Alexanyan is threatening to reorganize the company's management structure so that he could manage its subsidiaries, with the exception of YUKOS RM (refining and marketing) and YUKOS EP (exploration and production), whose managements refuse to subordinate themselves to him. Alexanyan may succeed in his plans, which he announced yesterday, if he is not prevented from doing do by the court, which is to rule on elements of crime in his actions today, or law enforcement, which conducted searches of his apartment and suburban home right after he made his announcement.
Alexanyan said that the lack of information from the company' subsidiaries that has arisen from the conflict from the company's London and Moscow offices could reduce the value of the company's stock, thus bringing it closer to bankruptcy, and complicate life for temporary manager Eduard Rebgun, who is to present a plan to the court and YUKOS creditors by June 27 to settle the company's problems. He added that the problem with YUKOS RM and YUKOS EP, which take orders only from the company's London office can be solved in a second and that it would be known by the end of the week whether changes will be made in the company's management structure. Alexanyan was appointed executive vice president with the authority of president of the company on April 1. He had previously been a member of the legal team for main YUKOS shareholder Group MENATEP and head of the YUKOS legal department before that.
Alexanyan said that YUKOS Oil Co. has become a holding company and has practically no independent economic activity. The management of its subsidiaries are formally subordinate not to the president of YUKOS but to the management of YUKOS RM and YUKOS EP, whose managers are not executives of YUKOS Oil Co. Alexanyan said that that structure was untenable in a corporate conflict, mentioning that YUKOS RM head Anatoly Nazarov refuses to speak to him or provide requested information.
YUKOS temporary manager Rebgun told Kommersant yesterday that he will not become involved in the conflict. Nazarov was unavailable for comment.
by Anna Skornyakova, Olga Pleshanova, Evgeny Alexeev
MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - Former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky has once again been placed in a punitive ward at the penal colony where he is serving his term, Khodorkovsky's website reported, citing his lawyer, Natalya Terekhova. "Khodorkovsky was again placed in a punitive ward at the Krasnokamensk penal colony at 9:00 a.m. today," reads a report posted on Khodorkovsky's website. The official explanation for the punishment is that Khodorkovsky "dined not at a place specially designed for this." At about 9:00 p.m. on March 15, Khodorkovsky returned to the barracks from a meeting with his lawyer, Karina Moskalenko. "Then he and another convict started drinking tea at the unit council room. An officer on duty caught them right at the moment they were committing this criminal deed," the report says. "As a result, Khodorkovsky and the other convict were placed into the same punitive ward cell for seven days," the report says. Lawyer Moskalenko confirmed told Interfax that Khodorkovsky was placed in a punitive ward "for absolutely farfetched reasons." Moskalenko said Khodorkovsky had told her that "the colony administration has fabricated one more accusation." Khodorkovsky's lawyers will appeal the decision in court once again, she said. Meanwhile, lawyer Yury Shmidt said he believes "placing Khodorkovsky in a punitive ward was absolutely unlawful." "I am continuing to insist that the administration of the penal colony YaG 14/10 has been instructed to punish Khodorkovsky on any pretext and without such, because punishments might prevent his transfer to relaxed conditions and might in the future be an obstacle for Khodorkovsky to request a parole," the website quoted Shmidt as saying. "The colony administration has illegally deprived Khodorkovsky of meetings with his lawyers during working hours," Shmidt said. "So as not to lose time, Mikhail Borisovich [Khodorkovsky] had no choice but skip a supper to meet with his lawyers. And it would be inhuman to deprive him of the right to drink a cup of tea before going to bed, even if the regulations did not allow this," Shmidt said. "It is absolutely clear that such a 'violation' deserved no more than an oral reprimand," he said.
MOSCOW, March 17 The bank accounts of a foundation led by the imprisoned Russian businessman, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, were frozen by court order today, the foundation and its bank said, a move that strongly suggests the organization is about to be shut down by the Russian government.
The foundation, Open Russia, immediately announced that it was forced to suspend its activities promoting civil society, and accused Russia of extending its crackdown on nongovernment organizations.
"It seems that they are trying to stop all of our activities because, of course, without money we can do nothing," said Irina Yasina, the vice chairman of the foundation's board.
The court action follows a general crackdown in Russia on nongovernment organizations that receive foreign funding, all of which will be subject next month to a law signed in January restricting their activities.
Although Open Russia is a domestic group, the new provisions had seemed tailored to include it, as a clause in the law extends the restrictions to organizations founded by citizens convicted of crimes.
Mr. Khodorkovsky, the founder of the Yukos oil company, started Open Russia in 2001. Once Russia's wealthiest man, he was convicted of fraud and others charges last year, and is serving an eight-year prison term in Siberia. He and his supporters claim the charges against him were a retaliation contrived by the Kremlin as punishment for his political activities.
Open Russia, which claims to be the country's largest foundation, has supported human rights and political freedoms in Russia, in part by providing grants to partner organizations throughout the country. It had planned an annual budget of $11 million this year and maintained its accounts at the Trast national bank, Ms. Yasina said.
Its activities have been the subject of intense government interest, including a raid on its offices here last fall, and at least five tax inspections last year, Ms. Yasina said. Today much of the suspense about Russia's intentions ended.
A spokesman for Trast, Dmitry V. Chukseyev, said that an official from the General Prosecutor's office arrived in the morning with a court order stipulating that the accounts had been frozen "in relation to a criminal matter against Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and other unidentified people."
The order, Mr. Chukseyev said, "immobilizes any movements of money" without the prosecutors' approval. It did not make clear the nature of the criminal activity, Mr. Chukseyev said. Russia's General Prosecutor's office made no public statement about the case.
Mr. Khodorkovsky remains the chairman of the board of Open Russia. The court order's mention of Lebedev referred to Platon Lebedev, Mr. Khodorkovsky's business associate, with whom he was convicted.
Mr. Yasina said the accounts contained several million dollars, and the assets were frozen on a day that Open Russia had planned to distribute funds to organizations it helps underwrite.
She excoriated the prosecutor for moving against the foundation, saying that it was another example of Russia backsliding on human rights and civil society at a time when it holds the rotating chairmanship of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
The court order also arrived on the same day that Mr. Khodorkovsky's supporters said he had been sentenced to serve a week in a punitive cell because he had been drinking tea outside an approved prison area. Russia's prison service could not be reached by telephone this evening.
The action against the foundation were unexpected but not entirely surprising. Almost all aspects of Mr. Khodorkosvky's business and public activities have faced government pressure since his arrest in 2003.
His oil company is in ruins, after being drained of assets by enormous tax judgments against it and having its core business auctioned off by the Russian authorities. Mr. Khodorkovsky himself still has several years to serve on his prison term.
Ms. Yasina said the events today signaled to her that Open Russia, like Yukos, would not survive in Russia.
"Now it is absolutely clear," she said. "I had some hope, even today in the morning. Now I understand that we are stopped."
MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - Yukos president, U.S. citizen Steven Theede has no permission to work in Russia, the Russian Federal Migration Service told Interfax on Friday. "Nobody by the name of Steven Theede has been included in the database of foreign citizens with permission to work in the Russian Federation," an official source from the Migration Service said. He said that "Steven Theede has never applied to the Federal Migration Service to receive permission to work in Russia, otherwise he would be in the database." Consequently, according to Russian law, this foreigner does not have the right to work in Russia. On Thursday evening Yukos (RTS: YUKO) distributed a statement that Steven Theede is legally the president of Yukos. "Following recent press reports indicating that the Federal Migration Service is questioning Mr. Steven Theede's authority as President of Yukos Oil Company as a result of him not possessing a Russian Work Permit, the Company states: Mr. Theede carries out his duties as President of Yukos Oil Company outside of Russia and Russian law does not prevent such an arrangement," the statement said. "Under Russian law Mr. Theede's powers and duties as Yukos President were conferred upon him in strict compliance with Russian Civil Code and the Law on Joint Stock Companies. The authorities vested in him are conferred by the Board of Directors of Yukos. To this end, the issues relating to Mr. Theede's Visa and/or Work Permit are purely a matter of administrative law rather than corporate law and their absence do not affect his ability to carry out his duties with the complete authority vested in him by the Board of Directors under corporate law," the statement said. Theede has been company president since summer 2004, before which he held various positions at Yukos.
MOSCOW, March 15 The Russian state oil company Rosneft has acquired $482 million in debt that the troubled oil company Yukos owed to Western banks, Yukos said Wednesday. The step raised the possibility that Rosneft might acquire Yukos's remaining assets.
In a statement on its Web site, Yukos said it appeared that Rosneft acquired the debt in December.
Neither Rosneft nor the Western banks confirmed the sale. A spokesman for Rosneft could not be reached late Wednesday.
Rosneft has already acquired Yukos's richest oil fields and with Yukos in official disfavor and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, energy analysts speculated that Rosneft might gain possession of at least some of the Yukos assets used as collateral on the debt.
But Rosneft denied as recently as Monday that it was interested in acquiring the rest of Yukos, and some analysts said the purchase of the debt might be an attempt by Rosneft to clean up its books before an initial public stock offering it plans later this year.
"Rosneft wants to make its debt structure as clean as possible and remove any uncertainties ahead of its I.P.O.," Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow, told Bloomberg News. "It also puts Rosneft in a better position for assets that may be shaken from Yukos under bankruptcy."
A consortium of 14 Western banks, including Deutsche Bank, ING, Citigroup and BNP Paribas, filed suit in Moscow on Friday to have Yukos declared bankrupt. Yukos also faces tax claims and other lawsuits.
Rosneft, a second-tier producer in the 1990's, became a major oil company when rich fields in western Siberia were seized from Yukos by Russian tax authorities in a politically charged case in 2004. Yukos's former chairman, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, is serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony after conviction on fraud, embezzlement and tax-evasion charges.
Rosneft hopes to raise $20 billion on Russian and foreign exchanges from its stock offering. The Kremlin intends to retain 51 percent of the company.
Oil analysts in Moscow have said that what remains of Yukos is ripe for a takeover by the state. But Rosneft executives and managers dismissed the prospect of a takeover at a presentation on Monday related to the prospective stock offering.
Asked whether his company intended to acquire the remnants of Yukos, a vice president, Sergei I. Kudryashov, said: "These assets are not for sale. For now, we are working on our own assets."
CHITA. March 3 (Interfax) - The wife and mother of Mikhail Khodorkovsky will soon leave Krasnokamensk after visiting the Yukos founder in the town's jail where he is serving his sentence, a source in the Chita region branch of the Federal Service for Correctional Institutions told Interfax.
In her spare time, Khodorkovsky's mother visited a local museum.
MOSCOW, March 3 (UPI) -- Russia's Supreme Court has upheld a complaint by jailed former oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky against prison rules that restrict his meetings with lawyers.
The former head of Yukos Oil Co. appealed to the court that regulations concerning prisoners' rights to meet with lawyers were unlawful, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Russia's highest court agreed with Khodorkovsky and upheld his complaint Thursday.
The administration of the penal colony in the Siberian region of Chita where Khodorkovsky is serving his eight-year term four times denied him a meeting with lawyers before 6 p.m. Colony regulations state that prisoners can meet with lawyers for no more than four hours and only if they are free from work.
Khodorkovsky complained that this was a violation of his right to qualified legal counsel.
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were found guilty of tax evasion and large-scale fraud one year ago, and sentenced to nine years in a low-security prison. A few months later, the Moscow City Court reduced their terms to eight years.
