Yukos official 'could die in prison'

By Catherine Belton in Moscow

Lawyers acting for a jailed senior Yukos official say their client could die in prison after Russian officials three times failed to act on a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that he receive immediate medical treatment at a specialised clinic.

Vasily Aleksanyan, the former vice-president of the bankrupt Russian oil company, is suffering from a life-threatening illness for which prison doctors prescribed urgent medication and therapy 14 months ago, his lawyers said.

But Mr Aleksanyan has yet to receive any treatment or be transferred to a specialist civilian clinic where investigators and the ECHR have said the treatment, which has potentially lethal side effects, should be administered. Instead he has been transferred to a prison hospital, where he contracted tuberculosis two months ago. He has gone blind and is unable to read the fraud and embezzlement charges against him.

"His condition is so bad that he could die at any moment. He could die from a cold," said Yelena Lvova, a defence lawyer for Mr Aleksanyan, who was arrested in March 2006 as part of a case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yukos's owner. Ms Lvova said she did not have Mr Alexanyan's permission to disclose the exact nature of his illness.

"The way the Russian government is behaving right now can only be described as shockingly repulsive," said Drew Holiner, Mr Aleksanyan's lawyer in the ECHR case.

"If he dies in prison the ECHR is going to find Russia is responsible for that."

The federal prison service said a Russian court would have to issue a ruling before Mr Aleksanyan could be transferred to a specialist clinic. Russia's prosecutors' office declined to comment on the case. The investigations committee at the prosecutor-general's office was not able to comment.

Mr Aleksanyan's condition is likely also to raise concern about other former Yukos officials jailed in Russia's prisons, which are notorious for cramped and insanitary conditions and for rampant tuberculosis. Mr Khodorkovsky, the country's former richest man, who was arrested in October 2003 in a Kremlin campaign said by critics to be politically motivated, is reported by his lawyers to be "more or less" in good health.

Defence lawyers said Russia's ignoring of the ECHR rulings on Mr Aleksanyan was a sign of the Kremlin's increasing impunity in violating basic human rights.

"The higher the oil price goes, the greater the silence in the west over violations of human rights in Russia, and the worse things get here. We're like a voice crying in the desert," said Yury Shmidt, a lead defence lawyer for Mr Khodorkovsky.

The rulings of the ECHR have not been published because of sensitive information contained in the case.

The Moscow Times : Ex-Yukos Executive Tells of Blackmail

By Christian Lowe
Reuters

A gravely ill former Yukos executive has accused his jailers of trying to blackmail him into testifying against old associates by denying him the medical treatment he needs to stay alive.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg made the highly unusual step of issuing three requests for Vasily Aleksanyan, 36, to be transferred to a specialist hospital, but authorities have not complied.

Aleksanyan's case is politically charged because he is a former vice president of the now-defunct Yukos oil firm, whose main shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian prison after falling foul of the Kremlin.

Investigators deny any unlawful treatment of Aleksanyan, who is awaiting trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion. They say he has made his own health worse by rejecting the treatment offered in the prison sanatorium.

At a Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday where his lawyers challenged his detention, prosecutor Vladimir Khomutovsky said Aleksanyan had HIV/AIDS. His lawyers said they did not have their client's consent to disclose his illness.

In an open letter he passed out of the Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow, Aleksanyan said he was now nearly blind, had a constant fever and was in urgent need of a course of drug treatment that was only available outside prison.


"The prognosis is death," said his lawyer, Yelena Lvova, when asked what would happen if Aleksanyan, in detention since April 2006, was not transferred to a civilian hospital soon.

Kremlin critics say Yukos and its executives became the targets of an official vendetta because they challenged President Vladimir Putin's power. Khodorkovsky is expected to stand trial soon on a set of new charges.

The investigators handling Aleksanyan's case said in a written statement that "in accordance with current legislation, the defendant has been offered comprehensive medical treatment, which he has declined."

"The investigation of this criminal case is being conducted in exact accordance with the demands of criminal procedural law," the Investigative Committee, a semi-autonomous agency under the auspices of the Prosecutor General's Office, said in the statement.

Aleksanyan took part in Wednesday's hearing by video link from his prison, where he could be seen in a small metal cage. He appeared thin and tired, and sat hunched over. He struggled to get to his feet to address the court.

When the judge adjourned the hearing until Jan. 22, Aleksanyan said, "I hope I will survive for another week."

In the open letter, Aleksanyan accused the authorities of deliberately driving him to a condition where he was "close to death" by denying him treatment.

"Attempts have not ceased to make me give false evidence and provide testimony incriminating other Yukos bosses, in exchange for giving me bail on health grounds, that is, in effect, in exchange for life."

The Federal Prison Service did not respond to a request for comment.

Aleksanyan has a brother who works as a translator in the Reuters Moscow office.