If the arrest, trial, and sentencing of former OAO Yukos Chief Executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky have had any meaning whatsoever, it has been lost on most people in the oil industry.
Indeed, the jailing of Russia’s formerly richest man on charges of fraud and tax evasion was widely viewed as punishment for his political ambitions and, worse, as part of a drive by the government for control of the crucial oil industry.
State oil firm OAO Rosneft already owns Yukos’s former main production unit and is believed to be eyeing the company’s remaining 600,000 b/d of production capacity and a major refinery. Russia’s efforts to take control of that industrial cash cow, however, have not stopped with the ghastly treatment of Khodorkovsky. The dismemberment of Yukos continues.
Another victim
Now Russian President Vladimir Putin and his henchmen have whisked another Yukos man-Executive Vice-Pres. Vasily Aleksanian-off the streets of Moscow and thrown him into the slammer after Moscow’s Basmanny Court issued a warrant for his arrest under questionable charges of misappropriation of property and money-laundering.
But it was all done with legal fastidiousness as Russian law requires that prosecutors receive court permission to file charges against a former lawyer like Aleksanian.
To ensure the legal niceties, the Simonovsky court had earlier ruled that prosecutors could launch criminal proceedings against Aleksanian, who was appointed vice-president at Yukos in late March after heading its legal department. “I’m without words to describe it,” said Yukos spokeswoman Claire Davidson of Aleksanian’s arrest. “He was working specifically to protect all shareholders (in Yukos).” Doubtlessly he was. That’s probably why he was arrested. That was back on Apr. 6 or so, and much has happened to Aleksania since then-none of it good.
Khodorkovsky knifed
Last week, word came that Aleksanian had been transferred from a punishment cell to an ordinary cell at the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial lockup. Note: This is a pretrial lockup, and Aleksanian was already in a “punishment” cell.
Apparently, Aleksanian was put in the punishment cell for 10 days after he refused to undergo a medical examination.
Then, despite not agreeing to take the supposedly required medical, Aleksanian was suddenly let out of the punishment cell.
“Aleksanian was transferred to an ordinary cell on Saturday. He is feeling normal and is keeping his spirits high,” said his lawyer Gevorg Dangian, who added, “Aleksanian continues his hunger strike.”
The lawyer had not discussed confinement conditions with his client but he wryly observed that Aleksanian “shares the cell with three or four inmates.” That sounds ominous, too. In most places, solitary confinement would be a punishment. But in Russia I would prefer solitary confinement, given the knifing that Khodorkovsky got from his “cell mate” a few weeks back. ✦