Russia has no data on Interpol withdrawal of Nevzlin arrest warrant - source
MOSCOW. Jan 15 (Interfax) - Neither Interpol's Russian bureau, nor other Russian law enforcement agencies have any information on the forthcoming withdrawal of the international warrant for the arrest of the former largest Yukos shareholder, Leonid Nevzlin.
"The Russian law enforcement agencies, including the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Russia, do not have any information about plans to withdraw the international warrant for Nevzlin's search and arrest," a source familiar with the situation told Interfax on Wednesday.
Such claims were made earlier by Nevzlin himself, a former Yukos co-owner who has resided in Israel since 2003. In an interview with local media outlets he said, in particular: "Good news for me. Two days ago Interpol admitted the political motivation behind my persecution and entered this in my card, which leads - as I was told, and I can only pray for it - to the Red Notice, Interpol's red warrant, soon disappearing for me."
The so-called red warrant means immediate arrest in the case of a search of highly dangerous fugitives, he said.
Until June 2002 Yukos' largest shareholder Nevzlin sat on the company board and held various executive posts at the oil company's subdivisions and at the Menatep bank. Since June 2003 Nevzlin has lived in Israel where he obtained citizenship the same year.
In January 2004, Russia put Nevzlin on the international wanted list and charged him in absentia with an over 3 billion ruble embezzlement and 26.7 million ruble individual tax evasion in 1999-2000.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has also accused Nevzlin of masterminding an attempt on the life of former Rosprom manager Sergei Kolesov, Moscow mayor's ex-PR chief Olga Kostina and one of the top managers at Austria's oil company East Petroleum Handelsges mbH, Yevgeny Rybin.
In 2008, Moscow City Court sentenced Nevzlin in absentia to life imprisonment for organizing murders and attempted murders, and the decision was later upheld by the Russian Supreme Court.
In July 2012, the Russian Investigative Committee announced the inquiry completion and forwarded the Nevzlin dossier to a court for trial in absentia. According to investigators, "In 1998 Nevzlin conspired and appropriated 38% of shares in Tomskneft VNK, Achinsky NPZ and others, which had been contributed by the Russian state to the authorized capital of Eastern Oil Company in the amount of over 3 billion rubles."
Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and Yukos EP Executive Manager Ramil Burganov were found guilty on this count, Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said at the time. The criminal inquiry was launched under part four article 160 of the Russian Penal Code (misappropriation), he said.
In June 2013 Moscow's Simonovsky Court added six years of prison on top of Nevzlin's life sentence for misappropriation. The court found Nevzlin guilty of the charge and, having combined the 2013 and 2008 verdicts, sentenced him in absentia to a life at a high-security prison.
The court found that Nevzlin had committed the crime as a member of a group led by former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Other group members included Menatep chief Platon Lebedev and the late former Yukos vice president, Vasily Alexanyan, the verdict said.
In December 2013 Moscow City Court rejected Nevzlin's appeal against the in absentia verdict in the misappropriation case. Nevzlin's defense team insisted at the trial that there was nothing criminal about their client's actions and that the case against him was political.