Translated material
Putin: the case of "Yukos" - criminal
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin again called the case of "Yukos" criminal. According to Vedomosti, he made such a statement when speaking at the Forum of VTB Capital Russia is calling. “The Yukos case is a special case,” the prime minister said. “There is a criminal case, the problem is not only in tax failure. There, people are convicted of murder, corpses hang on them. Let us take the “Yukos” to the brackets, ”Putin suggested, answering the question of the German shareholder, whether the“ Yukos ”case is possible. Putin added that this is a“ criminal topic, it is disputed in court, and this is legal, but the court has been proven ”.
On August 7, Putin personally accused Mikhail Khodorkovsky of murders. He made such a statement at a press conference after a meeting with the participants in the Valdai discussion club. Answering the questions of journalists, Putin again stated that he would not interfere in the case of the ex-head of the Yukos. “This is a judicial case, I will not intervene, but this person has blood on his hands,” Polish journalist Adam Mikhnik quoted Putin. He noted that Putin, speaking of the "Khodorkovsky case", demonstrated "personal emotion." The prime minister answered other questions in a calm tone and joked, but on this issue, according to the journalist, Putin’s intonation changed dramatically.
Putin was already trying to blame Khodorkovsky of murders in 2009, during the "direct line". “No, unfortunately, no one recalls that one of the leaders of the Yukos company’s security service is in prison. Do you think that he acted at his own discretion, at his own fear and risk? He did not have specific interests. He is not the main shareholder in the company. It is clear that he acted in the interests and instructions of his owners. There were only five proven murders,” Putin said then. Meanwhile, in a recent interview with the Kommersant newspaper, Putin said that he was not related to trial in the case of the ex-head of the Yukos. "He carries a well -deserved punishment. He will be free - he will be a free person. I certainly did not drive him into a corner," Putin said.
Currently, the court considers the second criminal case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and former head of the MF MENATEP MFO Platon Lebedev. The arrested in 2003 Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in 2005 were sentenced by the Meshchansky court of Moscow to nine years in prison on charges of fraud and non -payment of taxes and were transferred to the colony. The second criminal case against the ex-heads of the company became known at the same time when the first lawsuit ended. In 2009, both were returned to Moscow in connection with the upcoming court in the second case and have since been contained in the investigative insulator.
According to new accusations, the Prosecutor General’s Office incriminates the former leaders of the Yukos "Theft of someone else's property by an organized group on a large and especially large size and its legalization." During the preliminary investigation, the prosecutor's office indicates, it was established that the accused of an organized group with the main shareholders of OJSC NK Yukos and other persons committed theft by assigning shares of subsidiaries of the Eastern Oil Company OJSC in 1998 in the amount of 3.6 billion rubles. In addition, the defendants, according to the prosecutor's office, committed the theft by assigning oil of subsidiaries of the company's subsidiaries in 1998-2003 in the amount of more than 892.4 billion rubles and the legalization of part of these funds.
The Minister of Industry and Trade Viktor Khristenko, the head of Sberbank German Gref, former Chairman of the Central Bank, Viktor Gerashchenko and former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, were already acting as witnesses in the “second case of“ Yukos ”in court. All of them directly or indirectly refuted the version of the prosecution. The President of Rosneft, Sergei Bogdanchikov, was not in court.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky calls his second criminal case politically and corruptionly motivated and claims that the process is initiated by people who do not want to release it. The former head of the oil giant explains the criminal prosecution by the fact that he supported an independent opposition in Russia.
