Lawyer for Open Russia Foundation staff pledges to file complaint about searches in their homes
MOSCOW. Dec 22 (Interfax) - The searches at apartments of several employees of the Open Russia Foundation established by former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky will be challenged in court, lawyer Sergei Badamshin told Interfax.
"Without any doubt, we will file a complaint as we consider the searches unlawful and groundless," Badamshin, who represents the interests of the organization's staff, said.
The investigative activities that started early on Tuesday morning have almost been completed, he said. "They seized every belonging of the Open Russia employees, everything that could be seized: phones, office appliances, documents," he said.
Now the law enforcement agencies are conducting the final investigative activity: they are searching a car belonging to Khodorkovsky's press secretary, Kulle Pispanen, he added.
Earlier on Tuesday we learnt that law enforcement agents came to search Moscow's Open Russia headquarters. The founder of the Open Russia Foundation, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said in a live interview with Ekho Moskvy radio that he considered the actions of the law enforcement agencies a kind of pressure on the organization's staff, adding that Open Russia, regardless of the current circumstances, is not going to move to other countries. It will continue to work in Russia, he said.
Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin revealed that the searches at apartments of the ex-Yukos head's coworkers were conducted for the purpose of checking the legitimacy of the acquisitions of shares in the oil company by its shareholders, who have won s $50-billion case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
Lawyer Badamshin said he was perplexed by how the searches could shed a light on legitimacy or wrongfulness of the acquisitions.
