Other Key Individuals

Incredibly, more than 50 criminal cases were filed against YUKOS executives, employees, and owners in connection with the legal campaign against the company. In addition to the high-profile trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, three other cases received a good deal of attention.

Svetlana Bakhmina

Svetlana Bakhmina was a mid-level lawyer for YUKOS. In 2004 she replaced Dmitry Gololobov, the head of the YUKOS legal department who left Russia in fear of criminal persecution. Svetlana was arrested on December 7, 2004, on charges of fraud. In April 2006 she was convicted and later sentenced to six and one-half years of imprisonment.

The case of Bakhmina, whose arrest was seen as an attempt to bring Gololobov back to Russia, is particularly disheartening because she is the mother of two little boys, who were aged 3 and 7 at the time of her arrest. At times during her imprisonment, she went on hunger strikes to protest the prison's acts of cruelty, which included not allowing her to phone her children.

Russian law allows sentencing to be delayed when a mother has very young children, but Bakhmina's request was denied. The US State Department's Human Rights report in 2006 noted her case as one that many consider to be politically motivated. In December of 2008, Bakhima gave birth to a girl. In violation of Russian law, her application for parole was denied.

She was finally granted parole and released from jail in April of 2009, after more than 90,000 people signed a petition addressed to President Medvedev demanding her release.

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Vasily Aleksanyan

Vasily Aleksanyan was a member of the defense team for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. On March 30, 2006, he was appointed executive vice-president of YUKOS, and within one week he was arrested. Aleksanyan's case has been the cause of heightened concern because he has been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and was held in prison in serious condition.

Aleksanyan accused authorities of denying him proper medical attention for not "cooperating" by testifying against YUKOS executives. In February 2008, Aleksanyan was finally transferred to a hospital after four requests made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Even in the hospital, he remained under arrest while receiving treatment for HIV and cancer.

On December 30, 2008, Aleksanyan was released after posting $1.8 million bail, an unprecedented amount, and is currently receiving medical treatment for AIDS and cancer. The decision by the Russian court to release him was issued just a few days before the  ECtHR demanded the Russian authorities release Aleksanyan. Thus, the Russian court barely escaped another embarrassment.

Aleksanyan's release was only possible due to his family’s worldwide efforts to raise bail. The amount requested for bail by the Russian government was significantly disproportionate considering there are no prospects of him going to trial since the case is stayed due to his health condition and the statute of limitations has expired. The judicial authorities have since continued to postpone a decision on Aleksanyan's ability to participate in the case, despite documents presented from medical examinations affirming the severity of his condition.

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Antonio Valdes-Garcia

In May of 2009, Russian prosecutors requested the extradition of former YUKOS executive Antonio Valdes-Garcia from Spain. Valdes-Garcia had been the head of Fargoil, a former YUKOS oil-trading subsidiary. Held under house arrest in his Moscow apartment, he fled Moscow to Spain in January of 2007 before being sentenced for an alleged embezzlement scheme.

In April of 2009, defense attorneys for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev read in court a petition by Valdes-Garcia, in which he described threats, blackmail and torture inflicted upon him, with the intention of forcing him to provide false testimony against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. In August 2009, Spanish authorities, echoing decisions made by other European governments, announced that they would not satisfy Russia's request to extradite Valdes-Garcia.

In sum, no fewer than 50 criminal investigations were initiated as part of the YUKOS Affair since 2003 and many are still ongoing.