Soothing signals Yukos: that means cessation of “business experts” – RBC

anonymous termination

On Tuesday, news agencies reported on the termination of the investigation against a group of lawyers and economists, who issued an expert opinion on the second Yukos case. According to an unnamed source Interfax, the investigation did not find in their actions constitute a crime and mercenary motive, “although some of them did get a reward from the structures, funded by former Yukos executives”. And according to TASS, “the test is completed, no claims to the experts there».

May 30, Interfax announced the suspension of «due to the impossibility of criminal prosecution» investigation in the case of four former top managers of Yukos – the former financial director Bruce Misamore, former president Steven Theede, Chairman and main shareholder Group Menatep Ltd Timothy Osborne and Yukos management adviser David Godfrey accused in the legalization of more than $ 10 billion and embezzlement.

In the TFR all these reports do not comment.

However, the source close to the investigation team, told RBC that no cases involving Yukos, has not recently suspended and did not stop.

The experts who questioned the investigators, and Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, told RBC expressed bewilderment about the messages of anonymous sources, according to the interlocutors RBC, interrogations stopped almost one and a half years ago.

Contact experts

From the initial, the “mother” of the Yukos affair, initiated in 2003 (number 18/4103), later spun off (Separated) a lot of things in relation to the company’s shareholders, top managers of Russian and foreign executives, says RBC lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant, Mikhail Khodorkovsky led the defense in the second trial, and more recently helped him to file a complaint on violations in the process the European Court of Human Rights. Experts questioned precisely the “mother” case, no separate “business experts” did not exist, says Klyuvgant. According to him, active investigations in this direction stopped immediately after the pardon Khodorkovsky in late December 2013, and last year only witnesses tried in vain to return the seized computers and databases.

This test had no direct relation to the isolated into a separate case of foreign executives (Misamore and others). It was suspended for some time, Klyuvgant said, because all countries have refused to extradite them in absentia to judge (as Leonid Nevzlin) Foreign citizens who are under the protection of their countries, our law enforcement agencies are not at risk, says the lawyer.

attracted to the “business experts” after pardoning Khodorkovsky did not bother to confirm one of them, Mikhail Subbotin. Investigators walked wide dragnet, interviewing not only experts in the Yukos case, but also members of the Presidential Council on Human Rights and the roundtable participants – with a question about the reasons for the liberalization of the Criminal Code, but a majority of respondents experienced discomfort, no more resembles the source. But the director of the NGO “Center for Legal and Economic Studies” Elena Novikova, her husband, the executive director of the center, as well as of the Subbotin (he was deputy Novikova) as evidence documents were seized; they still have not returned, proof of which are – is unclear, says Subbotin. The work center is destroyed and not rebuilt, says the source; Novikov was forced to leave to relatives in Kazakhstan, to return to Russia still can not.

At the very Subbotin, he said, no problems with the departure from Russia and there was no return. All respondents retained the status of witnesses, said the source; although the resolutions of searches against them were promoted serious criminal charges (obstruction of justice, etc.) in real criminal cases they are not embodied, he said.

At the beginning of December 2013, Interfax reported, that the so-called “third Yukos case” are about 15 experts who prepared an independent expert opinion on the verdict handed down in the second case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. Earlier, Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev said that the third case laundering concerns abroad more than $ 10 billion, which allegedly stole Khodorkovsky and his associates: the investigation finds that some of that money went to finance the changes in the Russian legislation, aimed at its liberalization. have been questioned, including the former rector of the New Economic School (NES), Sergei Guriev, head of the department of business law at the Faculty of Law School of Economics Oksana Oliynyk, a Constitutional Court judge Tamara Morshchakova retired, became the initiator of the examination, a human rights activist Valentin Gefter and chairman of the nonprofit partnership “Business-solidarity” Jana Yakovleva.

What signal

Morschakova also confirms that she and her colleagues from the previous year will not be disturbed. She believes that if the authorities were intimidating task of the expert community. Who is to say the termination of “business experts” can not be, because it was not initiated, insists the lawyer: interrogations of experts held in the framework of the initial case in 2003, and its termination are not announced. According to her, for the current message can be the desire of the authorities to give the public a calming signal. However, investigators could at least return the seized property, but even this does not happen, said Morschakova.

Yana Yakovleva, also since been questioned, there is another version. In her opinion, it was a kind of third trump card in the dialogue with the Russian authorities Khodorkovsky: he may have hinted that if he misbehaves, he could be really serious investigation, and the remaining plant in the Russian experts. But since the authorities were convinced that the threats to freedom of the regime released the former oligarch is not, they send a signal that questions of this story is no more.

Guriev, who after the beginning of the interrogation experts left Russia for fear of harassment by law enforcement agencies, RBC said that he would look into the situation, but is not ready to comment on this information.

A person close to the former management of Yukos, says news of the commutation positions of the investigation in April reconciliation ” daughters “of Yukos and” Rosneft ».

According to the same Klyuvgant, all reports of movements for Yukos made only in order to show the visibility of the work of the investigative group, has existed for over 10 years: the work it allows make quick and easy career, some who started this business captains have become generals.