Putin Ally to Head Court Marshals

By Guy Faulconbridge Staff Writer
President Vladimir Putin has appointed an ally from St. Petersburg to head the Court Marshals Service, a key instrument in the Kremlin's legal battle with Yukos.
Putin appointed Nikolai Vinichenko as head of the Court Marshals Service last week after dismissing Arkady Melnikov, 65, the Kremlin said in a statement. Melnikov had headed the service since November 1999.
Vinichenko, 39, was prosecutor of St. Petersburg until September this year.
The Court Marshals Service, an arm of the Justice Ministry, has left investors gasping by parading contradictory decisions and statements on the fate of Yukos assets as the Kremlin steps up its campaign to wrest control of the company from its core shareholder, Group Menatep.
"The replacement of the retirement-age [court marshals] head with a younger and probably more ambitious St. Petersburg prosecutor may result in a more aggressive stance from the [court marshals] service towards Yukos," said Steven Dashevsky, head of research at Aton brokerage.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who controls Menatep, has been in jail for more than a year and is standing trial for tax evasion, fraud and leading an organized criminal group, charges he denies.
The confrontation between Khodorkovsky and Putin has placed Yukos' assets under threat after court marshals froze shares in Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos' main unit, and reportedly asked the Federal Property Fund to sell off those shares for about $4 billion, less than half of the lowest valuation of the Siberian oil producer.
Those actions have helped make Yukos shares the most volatile in the country, spike world oil prices and provoke suspicions that some officials might be playing the Yukos share market with insider information.
"On the higher levels there may have been some unhappiness with how badly some of the attacks on Yukos were carried out," said Yevgeny Volk, director of the Heritage Foundation Moscow office.
"There is also a question about allegations of insider trading, with big share price movements following different announcements by the Court Marshals Service."
Just like the president, Vinichenko, studied law at Leningrad State University. After graduation in 1987, twelve years after Putin, Vinichenko worked his way up in the office of the city prosecutor, finally monitoring investigations carried out by the special services.
He was made deputy prosecutor of St. Petersburg in 1997 and in 2001 was made federal inspector for the city under Northwest Region Governor General Viktor Cherkesov, who studied with Putin and is now the head of the Federal Drug Control Service.
Vinichenko was made prosecutor for St. Petersburg in April 2003 but resigned in September amid speculation that he was in conflict with Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov and perhaps even with deputy chief of the presidential administration Igor Sechin.
Russian newspapers have reported Vinichenko is a long-term acquaintance of Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's chief of staff, and Dmitry Kozak, Putin's envoy in southern Russia. Both men are also St. Petersburg lawyers.
"He may know Putin, as they both worked in St. Petersburg and they certainly had similar acquaintances. Putin is putting someone he knows he can trust in this position," said Vladimir Pribylovsky, president of the Panorama think tank.
"He is a lawyer by education but he is probably closer to the St. Petersburg Chekist group, though these groups are of course very fluid."

(From The Moscow Times, 26.10.2004)