Court reduces another Yukos man's sentence
MOSCOW. Aug 15 (Interfax) - A court has reduced the sentence term earlier imposed on a Yukos employee.
"Viktor Anoshin, a lawyer for Vladimir Malakhovsky, who has been serving his sentence under Moscow's Basmanny Court ruling since December 10, 2004, said his client's sentence term will expire on October 9, 2012," the website of former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky's press center reported on Wednesday.
Malakhovsky, a former general director of the company Ratibor, was originally sentenced to 12 years in prison, then the term was reduced by half a year, then by two more years and then by 11 months to 9 years and 11 months, the website reports.
"In April this year, the Tonshayevo District Court reduced the term to 8 years and 2 months at the defense's another request. The criminal board of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court declined the defense's appeal in which it asked for the term to be reduced to the time [Malakhovsky] had actually served and reduced it by four months, that is, to 7 years and 10 months," it said.
A court earlier ruled to release Vladimir Pereverzin, a former Yukos deputy director for foreign debt. Both Malakhovsky and Pereverzin were earlier brought to Moscow from the penitentiaries, where they were serving their sentences, to testify at the second trial of Khodorkovsky and his business partner, Platon Lebedev.
Moscow's Basmanny Court in 2007 found Malakhovsky and Pereverzin guilty of embezzlement and ruled to grant suits amounting to 340 billion rubles.
"The defendants, acting as members of a criminal group through firms controlled by Yukos and as their fictitious owners, bought crude oil at artificially reduced prices, after which they sold it at inflated prices exceeding the real ones by 250%," the judge said in pronouncing the sentence.
The court ruled that Malakhovsky and Pereverzin were active members of an organized criminal group and committed embezzlement, misappropriation, and other "illegal machinations."
