Hearing on Khodorkovsky account seizure set for July 27

The Moscow City Court on July 27 will hear the appeals filed by Anton Drel and Vasily Aleksanyan, lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, against the seizure of their clients' Swiss bank accounts.

The Moscow City Court on Wednesday upheld four rulings issued by the Basmanny Court to seize the bank accounts of companies associated with Yukos, Dmitry Kharitonov, a lawyer for major Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin, told Interfax.

On March 19, the Basmanny Court sanctioned the seizure of the bank accounts of Yukos lawyers Aleksanyan and Drel. Khodorkovsky's lawyer Genrikh Padva told Interfax that these accounts were seized at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office, which said the funds had been obtained unlawfully.

In its request, the Prosecutor General's Office said it believes that some of the funds obtained unlawfully were located in Swiss banks in the accounts of several companies and 24 private individuals, including Drel and Aleksanyan.

The Basmanny Court's March 19 ruling was issued without any inspection, Padva said. In particular, the court did not check whether the lawyers had any funds in their accounts, he said.


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