Link to post no. 10311...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1058159/posts "Konanykhin Hearing Begins"
Moscow Times ^ | Thursday, Jan. 15, 2004 | Valeria Korchagina
Posted on 01/14/2004 6:13:01 PM PST by RussianConservative
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, began hearing an extradition case Wednesday against Alexander Konanykhin, a Russian businessman wanted in Moscow on fraud charges dating from the early 1990s.
Konanykhin, a one-time business partner of jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested late on the night of Dec. 24 by Homeland Security officers as he and his wife, Yelena Gracheva, tried to drive to Canada in an apparent move to avoid deportation to Russia. Russian prosecutors have alleged that Konanykhin embezzled $8 million in state funds.
Konanykhin, 37, one of Russia's first post-Soviet millionaires and until 1995 vice president of Khodorkovsky's Bank Menatep, has lived in the United States since the mid-1990s.
In 1996 Konanykhin managed to avoid deportation on charges that he violated visa rules, and he was awarded political refugee status in 1999 after a judge concluded he would be in extreme danger from the authorities if he returned to Russia.
By the mid-1990s Konanykhin's financial dealings had also attracted the attention of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He reportedly had run offshore banking operations from the United States for his Russian partners, through the Antigua-registered European Union Bank. According to The Washington Post, some $12 million left Russia via its accounts before it closed in 1996.
But on Nov. 20, the U.S. Justice Department overturned the decision by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and issued a deportation order for Konanykhin.
He narrowly escaped being put on the next flight to Moscow after a judge in Alexandria became suspicious at the speed of the intended deportation. Instead, Konanykhin was held in Arlington jail, awaiting a court hearing."