Attorney General Indicts Avigdor Eskin With Illegal Spying on Michael Cherney, Alleging the Crime was Commissioned by Deripaska’s Advisers

LONDON, January 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — On 3 January 2011 an indictment
of Avigdor Eskin, a political activist, was submitted by the Attorney
General’s office to a Jerusalem court. The indictment relates to the case of
illegal collection of information about Israeli businessman Michael Cherney.

Mr Eskin is the fourth defendant in this case, which focuses on illegal
spying on Mr Cherney. As reported by the IzRus news website, in the last few
months the Attorney General’s office negotiated with Mr Eskin about bringing
up lesser chargers of dropping them altogether in exchange for his confession
that the illegal wiretapping of Mr Cherney was ordered by Russian billionaire

Exactly one year ago, a Tel Aviv court found the former private
investigator guilty in the same case and sentenced him to 14 months of prison
and damages amounting to 20,000 shekels. In September 2010 charges were also
brought against former private investigators Rafael Pridan and Maksim
Gurevich.

According to the bill of indictment submitted to the Jerusalem court this
month, one of the charges against Mr Eskin is that in April 2007 was
contacted by Alexei Drobaschenko whose objective was to inflict damage on
businessman Michael Cherney. At that time Mr Drobaschenko was serving as the
head of external relations for Basic Element, the financial and industrial
group that manages Oleg Deripaska’s assets. The indictment details that at a
meeting in Moscow, Mr Drobaschenko explained to Mr Eskin and Mr Pridan that
“people he represented are in conflict with businessman Michael Cherney and
wanted to gather information on him”.

Background to this Jerusalem case includes a lawsuit taking place in
London. In November 2006 Michael Cherney filed a suit against Oleg Deripaska,
his former business partner. In this case Mr Cherney demands that he be
recognised as the owner of 20 per cent of the stock in UC Rusal (the second
largest aluminium producer in the world), or else that he be compensated the
full value of the package. The total of the claim, including various interest
and charges by June 2010 exceeds $4bn USD. The High Court in London has ruled
against all Mr Deripaska’s motions that challenged British jurisdiction for
the case and the court will hear the case on its merit in April 2012.

In April 2009 Israeli publication Haaretz noted that this London suit was
the cause of Mr Deripaska and his advisers undertaking large scale attempts
to discredit Mr Cherney in Europe and Israel. In addition to attempting to
damage Mr Cherney’s reputation, they allegedly expected that a European
country would place him on the international Wanted list in order to prevent
him appearing in court in London.

On February 14, 2008, Mr Cherney filed a suit in a Tel Aviv court against
nine people, including Oleg Deripaska, Alexei Drobashenko, Avigdor Eskin,
Rafael Pridan and Aviv Mor, asking for 10 million shekels in damages. Mr
Cherney claimed that Mr Deripaska had launched an international campaign ,
including one in Israel, to discredit him. This included “slanderous
publications in electronic and print media, street graffiti, and attempts to
influence authorities by illegal means”.

Experts expect that the next indictment will be against Alexei
Drobashenko, the former head of external relations for Basic Element (BasEl),
and that this will directly implicate Oleg Deripaska, the owner of BasEl, in
this criminal case.

SOURCE OliveTreeNews