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Russian Prosecutor Brings More Charges Against Yukos Employees

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 July 2005, 09:01 CDT

Text of report by Russian external TV service NTV Mir on 5 July

[Presenter] The Prosecutor-General's Office has pressed more charges against Aleksey Pichugin, former employee of the Yukos oil company security service. He is charged, among other things, with the murder of the mayor of the city of Nefteyugansk. A special emphasis was placed on the fact that Pichugin was acting as part of an organized crime group on instructions from Leonid Nevzlin, one of the oil company's shareholders, who is currently in Israel.

[Vladimir Kolesnikov, deputy prosecutor-general of Russia] Nevzlin, a member of the board of directors of the Yukos oil company and first deputy chairman of the board of this oil company, and Pichugin, chief of the internal and economic security department of this oil company, as well as other individuals from among the employees of this oil company, who have not yet been identified so far - please pay attention to this - set up a crime group to commit crimes in their own interests and for other purposes. In 1998, Pichugin, acting on instructions from Nevzlin and other employees of the Yukos the oil company - we are now actively working on identifying these individuals and they will be identified - organized the murder of the head of the administration of the city of Nefteyugansk, [Vladimir] Petukhov.

[Presenter] The charges against Nevzlin are connected to murders and attempts on the lives of several people, and the Prosecutor- General's Office is hoping that he will be extradited to Russia.

[Kolesnikov] On 21 July 2004, the defendant, Nevzlin, was put on the international wanted list, on 23 July 2004 the Basmannyy district court in Moscow imposed a restrictive measure on the defendant, Nevzlin, in the form of a detention order. On 6 April 2005, the documents authorizing Nevzlin's extradition were sent to the international legal department. On 16 June this year, additional documents were sent, and I and the Prosecutor-General's Office are hoping that Nevzlin will be handed over to the law-enforcement agencies so that he can be given a just punishment for the crimes he committed.

[Pichugin received a 20-year sentence for murder earlier this year]

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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