Triple arrest – two ladies and the epic “Ratibor". "Billions of rubles were stolen insolently and shamelessly. Prosecutors were amazed. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on December 10, 2004.
On this day 19 years ago, on December 2004, the oil company of Mikhail Khodorkovsky organized an emotional show, on the brink of a nervous breakdown. The henchmen from the PR service of Leonid Nevzlin, accused of contract murders, lashed out on the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia. They banally accused this agency of purposeful harassment of “simple employees” of the company, having called the actions of the Office of the Prosecutor General “an undisguised terror, comparable in its forms and methods to the epoch of Stalin’s terror in 1937”. (Nevzlin with this rubber stamp attitude rushed everywhere, where he could pay for the entrance and for the possibility to be heard.
It was banal and emotional. It looked more like a nervous breakdown than an intelligible position of the company that had hoisted by its own petards, i.e. by machinations of its principals. Apart from that, the exploitation of the “Stalin’s repressions” theme signified that inside Russia the public support of the company was on the level of a statistical error. And Yukos started openly banking on "international public", calling it to "render help" to its employees, “whose lives were in danger”. After such a call “international public”, stands to reason, lined up to the cash registers – to collect money for a “rescue operation of the democratic oilmen”.
A REMARK FROM OSLO
Synchronously with the corporation acted from abroad, from Oslo, Yukos lawyers. Referring to the “intrigues of the prosecutor’s office”, it was declared that “the team of Khodorkovsky’s and Lebedev’s lawyers is, actually, deprived of the possibility to defend its clients in court”, said from the part of the defense the Lawyer Yuri Shmidt.
Long story short, emotions went ballistic. The more so that Lebedev and Khodorkovsky, before and after the foreign statements of the respected lawyers, had so many attorneys, legal counselors, advocates, and foreign solicitors as it was needed – the "borehole swindlers" didn’t grudge money on that.
TWO LADIES AND THE EPIC “RATIBOR”
The heat of the corporate emotions, obviously, could be attributed to the fact that the investigation carried out a series of new arrests within the framework of the large-scale investigation of the affairs of the "main shareholders". In those December days of 2004, the court gave its sanction for the arrest of Svetlana Bakhmina, the deputy head of the legal department of the company “Yukos-Moskva”.
The court sanctioned also the arrest of Yelena Agranovskaya, a partner of the law firm “ALM-Feldmans”. The mentioned firm, as it was pointed out in the materials of the criminal case, provided consulting as well as shadowy services to “the main shareholders” of Yukos. The newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” directly hinted that Agranovskaya, actually, was set up by the escaped to the United States "offshore gentleman" Pavel Ivlev. Thereat, who would have any doubt, they emphasized that Bakhmina and Agranovskaya are women. An in such a case the investigation actions are nothing less than efforts to create an atmosphere “of intimidation and moral terror”.
Apart from that, on December 10, 2004, it became known about the arrest warrant for Vladimir Malakhovsky, the general director of the JSC “Ratibor”.
This firm with an epic name, according to the investigation’s version, was used for registration of various shell firms with the purpose of embezzlement and money laundering. Together with other shell companies, it was engaged in murky schemed of tax evasion.
After the “triple arrest” it became evident that the myth, initially launched into circulation in 2003, according to which “the only problem was Khodorkovsky”, turned out to be a fake. All the more so that the investigation initially didn’t hide its intentions to enquire into all detected machinations of the oil company. And this meant at once that they were going to dig deep and serious. That said, every new figure in the case, set up for a criminal case by “the main shareholders” and fugitive principals frightened the oil company, above all, by the following possibility – anyone from them could become a witness of the prosecution.
“LAW WAS TRAMPLED UPON LONG RUDELY AND CYNICALLY”
The habit to organize meetings in the press with every possible accusation against courts and investigation played a cruel joke with Khodorkovsky’s empire. This time, having studies the manifest of Khodorkovsky, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia decided not to limit itself to official press releases on circumstances of one or another criminal case. And having stepped back from the traditional form of informing the public, accused the managers of Yukos of "dirty theft" and made in this connection a corresponding statement.
“The way how billions of rubles and dollars were insolent and shameless embezzled, amazes even the most experienced prosecutors and investigators. The sums of the stolen money, property, and unpaid taxes amounted to astronomical quantities", said the agency. "The law was trampled upon long, rudely, and cynically. Times has come to reap the fruits of their own actions", referring to the statement of the Office of the Prosecutor General notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, the press hinted to Khodorkovsky about another seven years in jail”. Some initiatives of the "civic society" looked like working off of friendly ties and sponsor’s money. In Russia money was coming through the “dump” “The Corbiere Trust”. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on December 9, 2013.
