Ex-manager of Yukos subsidiary sentenced to 12 years in prison
MOSCOW. March 16 (Interfax) - Moscow's Meshchansky Court has found Sergei Shimkevich, a former manager of Tomskneft VNK, a Yukos subsidiary, guilty of misappropriation, money laundering, and fraud and sentenced him to 12 years in a strict security penitentiary, Moscow City Court spokesperson Anna Usachyova told Interfax on Tuesday.
The court also sentenced Oleg Klyucherev, another person figuring in the case, to 8.5 years in a strict security penitentiary for complicity in money laundering and fraud.
"The third defendant, Oleg Kolyada, has also been found guilty of complicity in misappropriation and money laundering and of fraud and sentenced to 7.5 years in a strict security penitentiary," she said.
The court also ordered that 1 million rubles be recovered from each defendant in the state's favor, she said.
The Tomsk Regional Court board had earlier resolved that Shimkevich's actions contained signs of a crime, and Moscow's Basmanny Court on January 18, 2007 issued an arrest warrant for Shimkevich, a member of the Tomsk regional legislature, by granting the Prosecutor General's Office's request on putting him into custody.
The investigation found that "Shimkevich, along with a number of other persons, set up an organized criminal group, which conducted a number of fictitious transactions with securities of various companies, including in violation of regulations for financial transactions existing in Yukos and its subsidiaries," the Prosecutor General's Office had said earlier.
"The members of the organized criminal group managed to transfer 5.93 billion rubles illegally withdrawn from Tomskneft, which were intended for settling debts to tax authorities, to the bank account of the Moscow office of Trust National Bank, thus acquiring the opportunity to dispose of the money at its own discretion," it said.
The same group arranged a fictitious exchange of Tomskneft VNK promissory notes having no real market value for 14 Trust promissory notes worth in aggregate about 5.7 billion rubles, it said.
"Virtually all the promissory notes have eventually come into the hands of the members of the said organized criminal group, who later conducted a number of financial transactions to legalize the stolen assets," it said.