Moscow City Court upholds sentence for Nevzlin on property embezzlement
MOSCOW. Dec 17 (Interfax) - The Moscow City Court has upheld the second verdict passed against the formerly largest Yukos shareholder, Leonid Nevzlin, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment for organizing a murder and attempted murders.
The court has dismissed the complaint of Nevzlin over the sentence in absentia on property embezzlement, an Interfax correspondent reported.
Nevzlin's actions were not evidence of a crime and the case against him is "politically motivated," Nevzlin's lawyer said during the court hearing.
In June 2013 Moscow's Simonovsky court added six years for embezzling property in absentia to the life sentence of Nevzlin. The court found Nevzlin guilty and, upon the current verdict and the one returned in 2008, which sentenced him to life imprisonment in a maximum security penitentiary.
The court ruled that Nevzlin committed the crime as part of a group headed by former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The group included former Menatep CEO Platon Lebedev and deceased former Yukos Vice President Vasily Aleksanyan, the court ruling said. The cases against them over this accusation were closed due to statute of limitations.
The Russian Investigative Committee said in July 2012 that the investigation on Nevzlin had been completed and the case had been sent to court for hearing in absentia because the suspect was on the most wanted list.
Investigators believe that "in 1998, Nevzlin, as part of an organized group, embezzled 38% of the shares of Tomskneft, Achinsky Oil refinery and other companies, listed by Russia in the charter capital of the Vostochnaya Oil Company worth over 3 billion rubles."
Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and office manager of the Yukos EP company Ramil Burganov have been convicted over this case, Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said back then. The criminal case was opened under the Russian Criminal Code Article 160, embezzlement, he said.
Until June 2002 Yukos' biggest shareholder, Nevzlin, was a board member and took various executive positions within Yukos subdivisions and at Menatep bank. Nevzlin has resided in Israel since June 2003 and received Israeli citizenship in 2013.
In January 2004 Russia put Nevzlin on the international wanted list, and he was charged in absentia with property embezzlement worth over 3 billion rubles and tax evasion of 26.7 million rubles as a private person in 1999-2000.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said that Nevzlin organized an attempt on the life of former Rosprom executive Sergei Kolesov, former Moscow Mayor's Office PR department head Olga Kostina and a manager of the Austrian oil company East Petroleum HandelsgesmbH Yevgeny Rybin.
In 2008 the Moscow City Court sentenced Nevzlin in absentia to life imprisonment for organizing a murder and attempted murders and later the Russian Supreme Court upheld the verdict.