On 1st August Moscow City court delivered in absence a life sentence to the former largest YUKOS stockholder Leonid Nevzlin. The trial was exemplary and no one had any doubts that its only purpose was getting extradition of Mr. Nevzlin to Russia. Prosecutor General’s office had calculated that in case of conviction delivered it would promote the extradition process. It is known that previous attempts – several convictions on Alexei Pichugin – did not lead to success.  

When delivering the sentence, the judge Valery Novikov stated that the court had been proceeding from the fact Mr. Nevzlin represents danger for the society. According to the court’s opinion, Mr. Nevzlin “had come into a criminal conspiracy” with the former head of security service of YUKOS Alexei Pichugin and organized the following crimes:   

- Murder of Valentina Korneeva, the director of Moscow firm “Fenix”, who allegedly had refused selling premises of the shop “Chai” (Tea), situated on Pokrovka Street in Moscow, to the MENATEP Bank, where Leonid Nevzlin worked as first deputy president. Allegedly, Mrs. Korneeva was not satisfied with the price offered by the bank, and was killed by the YUKOS security service;     

- Murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of the city of Nefteyugansk. According to the prosecution, the requirement by Mr. Petukhov about “return of the avoided taxes and duties by YUKOS to the local budget came in conflict with personal and business interests by Nevzlin and Pichugin”. Allegedly, this is why he was murdered;

- Murder of a businessman from the city of Tambov, Sergei Gorin and his wife Olga, whose dead bodies were never found;

- Attempt on Olga Kostina, the former employee of the Moscow mayor office. According to the prosecution, it was organized by Mr. Nevzlin as he believed that “her actions were causing the damage for YUKOS”;   

- Assault related to robbery made against Viktor Kolesov, the former manager of ZAO Rosprom that was one of companies constituting YUKOS Group;  

- Two attempts on Evgeny Rybin, the head of the “East Petroleum” Company, whose services were rejected by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and who brought a legal action because of that for the amount of $100 millions;

Besides, the court has decided that Mr. Nevzlin must pay a compensation of over $5.5 million dollars to the victims.

The public prosecutor Alexander Kublyakov stated after the sentence was delivered that the “standing agreement with Israel allows submitting this sentence to relevant authorities in that country so that to ask that Mr. Nevzlin be extradited, or the sentence be executed on the Israeli territory”.      

The prosecutor was satisfied with the sentence and also noted that “the prosecution office has a chance of requiring extradition of Nevzlin from Israel”, though, as it became known to the prosecution office, at the time being the former YUKOS stockholder is “staying in the US and asks for residence permit”.  

In the meantime the Israeli authorities have refused repeatedly to extradite Mr. Nevzlin to Russia. Besides, the local Supreme Court of Justice refused denaturalizing Mr. Nevzlin under the legal action by a local human rights activist Yuli Nudelman.  

It should be noted that initially the judge Valery Novikov filed to the case the decisions of the Swiss and Israeli courts refusing extradition. However, when delivering the sentence, he considered those documents to be irrelevant to the norms of the Russian Criminal Code, and discarded it from the case materials.

Also the judges disposed of the statements by the defense who said the trial was politically committed. The judge said such statements to be unsubstantiated. 

The lawyer of the convicted in absentia, Dmitry Kharitonov, stated that the sentence would be appealed in the Supreme Court. 

According to the opinion by defense party, this conviction, as well as the previous one brought against Mr. Pichugin, has been based on conjectures, rumors, “personal opinions”, testimonies by strangers, and was of rather indirect relation.  Every second witness used the verbs “I know”, “I consider”, “I think”, “I heard” and “They said”. For example, the witness Shitov said “I consider it that it’s YUKOS to stand behind the Petukhov’s murder. His death was advantageous for the Company’s management. That’s not only my opinion, as there have been many rumors around”.   

The Pichugin-Nevzlin’s case was designed to be an exemplary one. While with Pichugin’s trial everything went more or less smoothly, the “Nevzlin’s scenario” was significantly harmed by some “reliable” witnesses, which caused some “facts” not to add up. Besides contradictory testimonies by the victims, the confessions by a number of witnesses (hired killers) went like a bolt out of the blue, where they admitted to making a deal with prosecution office and slandering on Pichugin and Nevzlin in exchange for minimal sentence.    

It should be noted that NO WITNESS OR VICTIM (with the exception of Mrs. Islamova, the widow of the killed mayor of the Nefteyugansk City), examined over the course of judicial enquiry, has stated to know something about the alleged conspiracy to commit murders and attempts by Nevzlin and Pichugin. As for Alexei Pichugin, he is still the only one to deny his guilt in all the counts and he states that Leonid Nevzlin did not give him any criminal orders.   

P.S. Now when the sentence is delivered, Leonid Nevzlin will be still put on the wanting list by Interpol. This is reported by the National Central Bureau of Interpol at the Russian interior ministry.  

P.P.S. Mr. Nevzlin has been residing in Israel since June 2003, where he got citizenship in November same year. A few months after that, he was put in the international wanted file by Russian authorities.