Trying to find traces of shares of the company “Apatit” in Yukos archive. The robber baron flew to a closed business party with participation of the head of the CIA. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on July 11, 2003.
On this day, 20 years ago, on July 11, 2003, an investigative group of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia was working in the premises of the archive of the LLC “Yukos-Moskva”. Within the framework of the criminal case over misappropriation of shares of the OJSC “Apatit”, the investigation was withdrawing documents, correspondence and electronic data storage devices.
In the “most transparent” oil company, a fit of hysterics took place. The press-service of Yukos, as usual, ramped up - “the search is being conducted by unknown people, who refuse to present themselves and show their personal documents”.
In addition, lawyers of the company had a role of their own. – in accordance with a lawyers’ genre, there were “a bit weak-sighted”, deaf and controversial.
The archive of Yukos doesn’t contain documents about the activity of “Apatit”, Yukos has nothing to do with the OJSC ‘Apatit”, said, without a wink, the deputy heads of the legal department of the company Dmitry Gololobov.
Investigators of the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russia Federation were trying to find in the archive of the LLC “Yukos-Moskva” documents on the company “Apatit”, told to journalists the lawyer Albert Mkrtychev, but, in his words, “lawyers didn’t see the search warrant”. The defense was loudly telling stories about “violation of law”, domesticated “civil activists” cried about “an armed raid on the office”, and they all threatened to challenge these arbitrary actions in court.
The Office of the Prosecutor General, in its turn, reported that the investigative actions in respect of the oil company NK Yukos were been carrying out in accordance with the applicable legislation, and all accusations of violations of the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code were unfounded and were not based on real facts. During the investigative actions, withdrawn were materials of proofs, which were important for the case – a lot of documents, servers, hard disks, video and audio recordings, and recording equipment. A bit later, the Moscow City Court confirmed the legality of the carrying out a series of searches, which were challenged by lawyers of the oil company.
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF “APATIT” SHARES
For instance, the withdrawn on July 4, 2003, documents in the company “M-Reestr” (the main register servicing “Menatep”) allowed the investigation to get answers to the question about what had been happening starting from July 1, 1994, with the 20% stock of shares of the OJSC “Apatit”. In fact, these shares the swindlers had split and “moved” according to a scheme – they had covered their tracks, trying to hide fraud. The purpose had been “to hold the shares of the OJSC ‘Apatit” under control of Khodorkovsky* and Lebedev”. After moving the shares through “dumps” in Russia, they had been “hung” on murky foreign offshores.
(See also the article “On this day, «Menatep» was making a ‘smokescreen” in the “Apatit” case”).
A DEPUTY’S INQUIRY WITH IN THE SPIRIT OF THE “YABLOKO” PARTY
Characteristically in the situation with the searches behaved domesticated by Mikhail Boprisovich Khodorkovsky (alias MBKh) deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. In particular, the parliamentarian Alexey Melnikov from the “Yabloko” party (it was “fertilized” with Khodorkovsky’s money and money of the company Yukos), having read a lot of lawyers’ statements in the loyal press, decided promptly to interfere in the course of the investigation.
“What are the legal foundations of the search in the archive of the company Yukos, which has nothing to do with the OJSC “Apatit”, as it was carried out within the framework of the embezzlement case over the allegedly belonging to the state 20% stock of shares of the company “Apatit”? hysterically asked the parliamentary in his deputy’s inquiry addressed to the Prosecutor General of Russia.
By the way, the member of the “Yabloko” party Melnikov, in a certain sense, can be regarded as a concentrated prefiguration of a group of the most zealous supporters of Khodorkovsky, ready to justify literally everything directed against Russia. When, for example, Khodorkovsky was already sitting in prison, Melnikov, on the website of the radio station “Ekho Moskvy”, tried to fence off henchmen of the Third Reich. He was fencing them of so diligently and whole-heartedly, that even the offshoot of “Yabloko” Ilya Yashin gave up (at that time, obviously, he had still the rest of reason and conscience).
Moreover, this is a characteristic trait to a portrait, above all, of Khodorkovsky himself, which is valid in current circumstances, when the foreign agent Khodorkovsky M.B. is enrolled as an active polizei-policeman, because he has started to openly incite to treason (Article 33 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) Russian businessmen and state officials of high ranks. The incited, naturally, are not “presents” at all, yet, Khodorkovsky’s appeals “to define positions, otherwise we are enemies”, looked not less disgusting.
ROBBER-BARON VISITING AMERICA
Against the backdrop of searches in various offices and affiliates connected with the International Financial Association MFO “Menatep” and the oil company NK Yukos, Khodorkovsky flew to the United States – to participate in a traditional annual non-formal meeting of the elite of the world business “Sun Valley Conference” in the U.S. state Idaho. According to a description, this event – a closed hanging out of “money bags”, as well of other well-known and not so well-known persons.
Sometime, on the sidelines of this “summit”, rather large scale deals worth hundreds of million and billions of dollars were, accidentally, concluded. In the company Yukos, it was specially stressed that Khodorkovsky “has agreed” to take part in that conference as early as half a year ago, and he was there “the sole representative of the Russian business”.
It was not announced what Khodorkovsky had had to pay for his “agreement” to take part in the American hanging-out. On the other hand, it was known that, apart from stock exchange speculators, talented and not so talented businessmen and dealers, in this event took part the finance minister John W. Snow and the CIA director George Tenet. Perhaps, it was interesting for the participants to listen to the swindler Khodorkovsky that had become billionaire not because he had invented or created something useful for Russia or for mankind, but because he had taken part in a robber like raid on the state oil branch of Russia and had planned to put it under control of his Western “friends”.
“Soon, the robber-baron came back, but, the awaited arrest at the airport didn’t take place, which was a surprise for the press. Yet, “to be transported from a plane to the pre-trial detention center “Butyrka” is not a very fantastic perspective”, argued the newspaper “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” in July 2003. (Such a perspective was legally realized in autumn – Khodorkovsky was taken from a plane in Novosibirsk in October 2003), notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, the U.S. Embassy was worried about its “secret employee”. “The Washington Post”: A dealer “with a horrible reputation”, Khodorkovsky* spent a lot of time wooing the Americans, and he asked them for help. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on July 10, 2003)
*On May 20, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Justice included M.B. Khodorkovsky in the list of physical persons executing functions of a foreign agent.
