Officials of the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs enforced the arrest warrant of Interpol in the airport of the town Pisa, from where Alexey Golubovich planned to take a private flight to London. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on May 10, 2006.
On this day 17 years ago, on May 10, 2006, in accordance with Interpol warrant, issued upon the request of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, Alexey Golubovich, the former director on strategic planning and corporate finances of the Oil company NK Yukos, was apprehended in Italy.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Italy, Alexey Golubovich was detained on May 10, 2006, in the airport of the town Pisa, from where he planned to take a private flight to London. The apprehension was conducted by officials of the Italian Police department of airline transport together with the Service of international cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs, and after that preparations were started for a judicial part of the process of a possible extradition. In the words of a representative of the Italian Prosecution, “the case is in an utterly delicate phase”, evidently, presupposing that there could be no court session on the question of extradition, as the talks about Golubovich’s voluntary come back had been on for sufficient time.
A SHADOW OF DUBIOUS DEALS
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia informed about sending to Italy of a corresponding package of documents. “According to the investigation, during the period from 1994 to 1995, as the result of Golubovich’s criminal actions as part of an organized group of persons, the damaged inflicted to the state, exceeded $283 million”, pointed out the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia.
Upon a motion of the Russian Prosecution, at the end of 2004, a measure of pre-trial restriction was chosen for Golubovich in the form of placement in custody (in absentia), and he was put on the international wanted list. The accusation formula preliminary pointed at a probable implication of the financier in some episodes of the first case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Andrey Kraynov. At issue, in particular, were machinations in the course of the privatization on the investment tenders of the JSC “Apatit”, and the Research Institute of fertilizers and insectofungicides.
By the way, during the whole court proceedings on the case of Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, and Kraynov, the defense was trying “to take out of production” this episode due to the expiration of the statute of limitation. Although, the prosecution insisted on its position in this question and insisted on rigorous following of the judicial procedure, according to which even a “dated” episode, together with other materials, was to be studied. The Court agreed with this position. And by its ruling, it recognized “the statute of limitations” only after the proceedings were over.
(See also the article “On this day, embezzlement of “Apatit” shares was left in the criminal case”).
INTERPOL’S TRACKER FOR AN INHABITANT OF A YACHT
Alexey Golubovich himself, from the outset, didn’t recognize charged brought against him, arguing that he had not undertaken any illegal actions, had not signed suspicious documents, and had nothing to do with the episodes imputed to him. He had left Yukos as early as in 2001, and in 2003 he had moved to Great Britain, periodically also had lived in Italy, including of board of a yacht docked in the port of the town Viareggio. Nevertheless, a corresponding “tracker” from the part of Interpol was placed on him.
In October 2006, the Court of the region Toscana, there the town Pisa is situated, dismissed Russia’s request to extradite the defendant. During the proceedings, Golubovich explained to the court that his life had been threatened by a fugitive criminal and shareholder of the company Leonid Nevzlin (in 2008 he was sentenced in absentia to lifelong imprisonment in connection with a series of murders and attempted murders). Moreover, according to Golubovich, it was Nevzlin who had stripped him of the promised for his work 2.6% of shares of the company GML.
(See also the article “On this day, Alexey Golubovich returned to Russia”).
However, the refusal to extradite became, at that time, more of a formality. The episode with the stock of the JSC “Apatit”, in which Alexey Golubovich was a defendant, in May 2005, during the proceedings of Khodorkovsky’s case, lost its relevance by the court’s ruling, and pertaining to other questions, Golubovich gave evidence to the investigation among other witnesses after he had managed to voluntary return to Russia.
FUTILE CONCERNS ABOUT A “POLITICAL UNDERGROUND”
It’s interesting to point out that the apprehension of Alexey Golubovich in Italy was connected with an effort to disrupt his interview with the TV journalist Mikhail Leontyev. Nevertheless, a detailed conversation about an unpleasant and shady side of the activities of the “most transparent” oil company came out.
(See also the article “In Yukos the stubborn were blown up or poisoned...”).
The second aspect that emerged during the effort to extradite Golubovich from Italy to Russia, emerged in the heads of “Yukos defenders” who “did not exclude” that “Alexey Golubovich could be forced not only to sign the liability to return to Russia”, but also to make a statement that “there is no political background in Yukos case”. From the mouth of the former top-manager and one of the strategist of the oil company, wrote the newspaper “Kommersant”, such a statement would sound convincingly, the more so on the eve of the consideration of the cases of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)”.
“Yet, there was no need for such statements. As is known, in Strasbourg, a “political background” in Yukos case was never found, and the ECtHR twice reported about that to the world public in its rulings”, noted the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, gigantic tax arrears of Yukos were discussed”. The hearings on the complaint of the Ministry of Taxes and Levies against the Oil Company NK Yukos about collection of 99.375 billion rubles. Tax plans of Alexey Kudrin. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on May 7, 2004).
