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Moscow - Authorities have detained the former chief of a Yukos subsidiary, the embattled oil company confirmed on Monday, saying the allegations against Antonio Valdes Garcia were unfounded. A website established by lawyers for the jailed former Yukos CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had said on Friday that Garcia was detained the day before upon arrival in Russia. A Yukos spokesperson said Garcia, a native of Russia, also had Spanish citizenship. Garcia was general manager of Yukos subsidiary Fargoil until last year, Yukos said on its website. He was being held in Moscow while being interrogated by Russian prosecutors, it said. The...

Capital flight from Russia is heading towards levels not seen since just before the financial crisis in 1998, according to a leading debt-rating agency. About $33bn (£18.2bn) was moved abroad last year, underlining concerns about the business climate and the lack of trust in the country's institutions and its property rights, Fitch Ratings said in a report issued yesterday. The agency calculates that capital flight has reached $100bn over the last four years. "Not only is it [capital flight] unusually large, but it is also rising. Last year's total was the highest since 1997, when Russians headed for the exits...

On a cold afternoon in the winter of 2004, Vladimir Putin summoned his long-serving prime minister to his Kremlin office. "Unfortunately," Putin told him, "I have to fire you." Mikhail Kasyanov was stunned. The Russian president gave no reason for the abrupt dismissal. Facing a national vote on his reelection just two weeks away, Putin had chosen a surprising time to shift governments. As he absorbed the news, Kasyanov assumed he would have to leave after the election. No, Putin corrected the prime minister. "I mean now." The power of paranoia had gripped the Kremlin. For four years, the men...

Khodorkovsky sentence hurts Russia's reputation - U.S. embassy MOSCOW. May 31 (Interfax) - The U.S. government plans to give detailed consideration to the sentence against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow told Interfax on Tuesday. The United States understands the sentence is a rather complex document and Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have the right to appeal, the spokesman said. A variety of aspects of the Yukos affair, among them reversible tax claims, frozen accounts that could not be used to pay taxes, and dubious auctions have raised a...

MOSCOW: A court declared oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty of an array of charges Tuesday including fraud and tax evasion, and sentenced him to nine years in prison minus time served. The declaration of guilt and sentence came in the 12th day of the laborious verdict-reading process in the most closely watched trial of post-Soviet Russia, and one that has been widely criticized as politically motivated. Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company and once estimated to be Russia's richest man, has already spent 583 days in jail, meaning he would serve about another seven and a half...

Speaking outside the courtroom, lawyer Konstantin Rifkin repeated the defense team's complaint that the judges had largely ignored the evidence it presented. "The evidence of witnesses is cited very selectively -- what fits with what the prosecution is saying goes into the verdict while there is complete silence on explanations or conclusions that favor our clients," Rifkin said. Judges read the verdict in oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's politically charged trial for a ninth day Thursday, going over details of tax evasion charges. Defense lawyers agree that what the judges have read so far guarantees that the court will find their...

Yukos verdict drags into Thursday The trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the richest man in Russia and the former boss of oil company Yukos, has been adjourned until Thursday. Earlier, Russian judges read aloud their lengthy ruling in the trial for tax evasion and fraud. A final verdict on the seven counts may come on Thursday but observers say the hearing is likely to drag on for days. Emotions have been running high as one defence lawyer called the trial an "act of reprisal". There have been daily protests outside the court. Stacked odds Mr Khodorkovsky is widely predicted to...

Moscow, 17 May 2005 (RFE/RL) -- A Moscow court today found jailed former Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovskii guilty of most of the fraud, tax evasion, and embezzlement charges against him, RFE/RL's Russian Service reported, citing Interfax. The court reportedly has yet to read out its decision on one last charge before it can pronounce a final verdict against Khodorkovskii and his co-defendant, former top Yukos executive Platon Lebedev. It must also read summations of witness testimony. Russian authorities accuse Khodorkovskii and Lebedev of massive tax evasion, illegal privatization, and embezzlement. The prosecution has requested that the oil tycoon get the...

MOSCOW - It had the beginnings of a classic courtroom drama: Russian special forces storming the private jet of one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country; an 800-page indictment outlining charges of massive tax evasion and fraud; allegations of political persecution ordered from the highest reaches of the Kremlin. But as the trial of the Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky crept forward over the last 10 months, it became clear his story was lacking the most important element of any drama: suspense. When the trial's judge, Irina Kolesnikova, hands down her verdict on Wednesday, no one,...

Mikhail Khodorkovsky (TRJ) E-Mail this article Comments to Editor Discussion Forum Printer-Friendly Advertisement The spectacle of the trial of two of Russia’s richest men has now begun in Moscow. The charges against Platon Lebedev and Mikhail Khodorkovsky are serious, laboriously documented and damning. The clumsiness of the Russian prosecutorial, judicial and prison system notwithstanding, the way in which the charges, evidence, and defence testinomy are handled by the court will have long standing ramifications. The Russian and world media, human rights groups, think tanks, foreign embassies, investment institutions, banks with loan exposure to Russia, share-buyers and speculators are all watching...

In an impassioned and at times emotional appeal, Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Monday closed his defense with a 39-minute address to the court that left his relatives, lawyers and even reporters applauding and some supporters wiping away tears. The verdict for Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev is to be delivered at noon on April 27, Judge Irina Kolesnikova said after Khodorkovsky's speech was over. Both men face up to 10 years in prison, the maximum sentence demanded by prosecutors on charges of fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion. Addressing the court from the defendants' cage he has shared for the...

MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) - According to the sentence of the Moscow City Court, Pichugin will serve his sentence in a maximum-security prison. Another defendant in the case, Alexei Peshkun, has been sentenced to four years, and he will also serve this sentence in a maximum-security prison. The judge passed the sentence on the basis of the jurors' verdict. Since the trial was held behind the closed doors, the judge announced only the resulting part of the sentence. "The court bases its sentence on the accusatory verdict of the jurors and has found him guilty of murders and attempted...

Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Russian upper house, was talking recently about the "real threat of a fascist putsch in Russia" -- "a new fuhrer with fascist-type, nationalist ideology" emerging in the 2008 presidential campaign. But while it would seem that so grave a danger calls for urgent and resolute action, Mironov sounded vague and nerveless about what should be done. Perhaps, he mused, the looming threat would simply impel the Russian people to ask President Vladimir Putin "to stay, not to leave" in 2008, when his constitutional term expires. The idea that the Kremlin might use the risk of...

Russia will continue to use legal measures to stamp out tax evasion, despite cases like the Yukos trial hurting the country’s image, presidential aide Igor Shuvalov announced Tuesday at an annual investment conference of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, Reuters reports. “No one wants to repeat the Yukos thing again, but…such measures will continue to be used when it comes to taxes,” he said. “Everyone has to pay taxes. Even if it were not Yukos itself, there would have been some other company that would have had to answer for tax evasion.”

Yukos Exile Nevzlin Accuses Putin of Stalinism MosNews The situation in Russia today can be described as Stalinism, Leonid Nevzlin, a core Yukos shareholder and a longtime business associate of Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, told the New York Times on Sunday. The longtime business associate of the imprisoned oil tycoon spoke out from self-imposed exile in Israel, denying criminal charges by the Russian authorities and saying the accusations against him are a continuation of a Kremlin campaign of intimidation. “The situation in Russia today I would describe as Stalinism,” Leonid Nevzlin said in a interview at his home in...

MOSCOW, March 14. (RIA Novosti)-At the end of last week, Spanish police identified the biggest financial fraud in the country's history: 41 people suspected of laundering €250 million were arrested. They included Russians and Ukrainians. The main company involved in this case is Yukos, Finansoviye Izvestia writes. The money earmarked for laundering was first sent to a Dutch firm, then to an account held by Del Valle Abogados, a law firm based in Marbella. "The Yukos money was evidently laundered in Spain and put into real estate on the Costa del Sol. This Yukos money was illegally changed into investment...

Yukos caught up in Spain money-laundering case By Mark Mulligan in Madrid Published: March 14 2005 02:00 | Last updated: March 14 2005 02:00 Yukos, the Russian oil company, has been caught up in what Spanish authorities call Europe's largest money-laundering case, uncovered in weekend raids on the country's Costa del Sol. Spain's interior ministry yesterday alleged that funds illegally siphoned from Yukos, which has been hit by a $28bn (£15bn, €21bn) claim for back taxes by the Russian authorities, had been discovered on the Mediterranean coast as part of a broader money-laundering investigation. It said political and judicial authorities...

Spain 'cracks $300m money racket' It was Spain's biggest investigation Police in Spain say they have smashed a massive international money-laundering ring centred on the southern coastal resort of Marbella.Forty-one people of at least five nationalities were arrested. The group is suspected of laundering more than $300m (£155m) for gangs involved in murder, drug trafficking, arms dealing and prostitution. Spanish authorities said they suspected some of the cash was illegally siphoned from Russian oil company Yukos. A spokesman for Yukos has denied any involvement in money-laundering. Yukos defiant A boat, two planes and more than 40 luxury cars were...

Opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin are calling for an investigation into his links with a German banker who was exposed last week as a former East German spy. Documents uncovered in a Berlin archive revealed Matthias Warnig, 49, who played a leading role in the controversial forced sell-off of part of the Yukos oil giant, was once an agent of the East German secret police, the Stasi. Yukos' Siberian unit was sold at rock-bottom prices According to research by The Wall Street Journal, Warnig - now the head of the Russian division of Germany's Dresdner Bank - cooperated with...

U.S. President George Bush yesterday hosted at the White House two Israeli-Russian businessmen involved in the Yukos oil major who are wanted by Moscow for alleged tax offenses. Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, both shareholders in the giant Russian oil enterprise Yukos, were invited to a White House breakfast as guests of Congressmen Tom Lantos and Christopher Cox, Israel’s Haaretz daily reported. But U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said that Brudno and Dubov are staying in the United States legally and cannot be arrested. “They are both, as I understand it, dual citizens of Israel and Russia, and they...