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Top Manager Jailed for Heading Wrong Company
Created: 12.04.2006 14:20 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 10:01 MSK
MosNews.Com
Becoming an executive vice president of a major Russian oil company may
seem an attractive career move for any ambitious man, but in Russia the
consequences of such appointment may prove harmful. Vasily Aleksanyan was
arrested just week after becoming the top manager of the embattled oil
company Yukos and, as the man himself said shortly before his detention,
this was done after repeated warnings from law enforcers to stay away from
the wrong company.
Aleksanyan's arrest was sanctioned by the Basmanny district court of Moscow
(which deals with most cases connected with the embattled Yukos company) on
April 7, less than one week after being appointed executive vice president
by Chief Executive Officer Steven Theede on April 1. The appointment was
unanimously ratified by the Board of Directors on April 4.
The authorities reacted quickly. On April 5 Aleksanyan's apartment and
country house were searched and he himself was questioned by prosecutors. On
Thursday he was arrested after the move was approved by the court.
Prosecutors accuse Aleskanyan of embezzlement and money laundering. If found
guilty he may face 10 to 15 years in jail.
Under Russian law a person may be detained pending trial only after a court
of law sanctions the move.
This bought Aleksanyan some time during which he talked to journalists about
the developments in his case. Several hours before he was detained, he told
the Kommersant newspaper that he had been under surveillance and the agents
engaged in it were not even disguising themselves, but acting quite openly,
which could be seen as an act of intimidation.
He also said that law enforcers had warned him to "stay away" from Yukos.
"In an interview on March 22, the investigator told me to stay away from
this company and she said so quite openly, in the presence of my lawyer.
After I said I was not going to leave Yukos, she smiled and said it was the
first time she had seen a man who was voluntary asking to be put in jail,"
the newspaper quoted Aleksanyan as saying. "Before that, the investigators
had said I should worry about my child and about my health. They said that
my health was already not strong".
In an official statement released the day after Aleksanyan's detention,
prosecutors said they feared he would flee the country, and that he had
attempted to do so already. However, over the past two years Aleksanyan has
headed the legal department in Yukos, and he always turned up for
questioning at the same time as he was working in the defense team of former
Yukos CEO and key shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky as well as Vasily
Shakhnovsky, the head of the managing company Yukos-Moscow.
Aleksanyan denied any wrongdoing and went on a hunger strike in protest at
his detention. "Starting today I am on a hunger strike, and will only drink
water until I am released," he has been quoted as saying by his lawyer,
Gevorg Dangyan. Dangyan has filed an appeal over his client's arrest, saying
that it was illegal and unfounded. "None of the documents showed that I had
committed a crime and all the accusations were absolutely unsubstantiated,"
he said.
Prison authorities reacted to Aleksanyan's hunger strike by putting him in a
punishment cell.
Gevorg Dangyan said that his client had been in the punishment cell since
April 8 for refusing to undergo a medical check-up to be carried out by the
detention centre doctors. The lawyer again said that Aleksanyan had been
refusing food and had only been drinking water.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky's lawyer Mr Amsterdam, who has been expelled from
Russia, said that Western nations must share the blame for what is happening
to the Yukos managers.
"I condemn the arrest in the strongest possible terms. Western nations have
no right to wring their hands over this latest assault on the rule of law
because it is they who have tacitly legitimized it. It is the Western banks
who made a pact with the devil to force Yukos into bankruptcy and then be
first in line for the spoils," Amsterdam told the Australian edition
Tax-News.com.
Created: 12.04.2006 14:20 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 10:01 MSK
MosNews.Com
Becoming an executive vice president of a major Russian oil company may
seem an attractive career move for any ambitious man, but in Russia the
consequences of such appointment may prove harmful. Vasily Aleksanyan was
arrested just week after becoming the top manager of the embattled oil
company Yukos and, as the man himself said shortly before his detention,
this was done after repeated warnings from law enforcers to stay away from
the wrong company.
Aleksanyan's arrest was sanctioned by the Basmanny district court of Moscow
(which deals with most cases connected with the embattled Yukos company) on
April 7, less than one week after being appointed executive vice president
by Chief Executive Officer Steven Theede on April 1. The appointment was
unanimously ratified by the Board of Directors on April 4.
The authorities reacted quickly. On April 5 Aleksanyan's apartment and
country house were searched and he himself was questioned by prosecutors. On
Thursday he was arrested after the move was approved by the court.
Prosecutors accuse Aleskanyan of embezzlement and money laundering. If found
guilty he may face 10 to 15 years in jail.
Under Russian law a person may be detained pending trial only after a court
of law sanctions the move.
This bought Aleksanyan some time during which he talked to journalists about
the developments in his case. Several hours before he was detained, he told
the Kommersant newspaper that he had been under surveillance and the agents
engaged in it were not even disguising themselves, but acting quite openly,
which could be seen as an act of intimidation.
He also said that law enforcers had warned him to "stay away" from Yukos.
"In an interview on March 22, the investigator told me to stay away from
this company and she said so quite openly, in the presence of my lawyer.
After I said I was not going to leave Yukos, she smiled and said it was the
first time she had seen a man who was voluntary asking to be put in jail,"
the newspaper quoted Aleksanyan as saying. "Before that, the investigators
had said I should worry about my child and about my health. They said that
my health was already not strong".
In an official statement released the day after Aleksanyan's detention,
prosecutors said they feared he would flee the country, and that he had
attempted to do so already. However, over the past two years Aleksanyan has
headed the legal department in Yukos, and he always turned up for
questioning at the same time as he was working in the defense team of former
Yukos CEO and key shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky as well as Vasily
Shakhnovsky, the head of the managing company Yukos-Moscow.
Aleksanyan denied any wrongdoing and went on a hunger strike in protest at
his detention. "Starting today I am on a hunger strike, and will only drink
water until I am released," he has been quoted as saying by his lawyer,
Gevorg Dangyan. Dangyan has filed an appeal over his client's arrest, saying
that it was illegal and unfounded. "None of the documents showed that I had
committed a crime and all the accusations were absolutely unsubstantiated,"
he said.
Prison authorities reacted to Aleksanyan's hunger strike by putting him in a
punishment cell.
Gevorg Dangyan said that his client had been in the punishment cell since
April 8 for refusing to undergo a medical check-up to be carried out by the
detention centre doctors. The lawyer again said that Aleksanyan had been
refusing food and had only been drinking water.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky's lawyer Mr Amsterdam, who has been expelled from
Russia, said that Western nations must share the blame for what is happening
to the Yukos managers.
"I condemn the arrest in the strongest possible terms. Western nations have
no right to wring their hands over this latest assault on the rule of law
because it is they who have tacitly legitimized it. It is the Western banks
who made a pact with the devil to force Yukos into bankruptcy and then be
first in line for the spoils," Amsterdam told the Australian edition
Tax-News.com.