Russia links YUKOS boss to Litvinenko murder

[Joanne98]

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors said on Wednesday that Leonid Nevzlin, a former top manager of the YUKOS business empire, could have ordered the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

"A version is being looked at that those who ordered these crimes could be the same people who are on an international wanted list for serious and very serious crimes, one of whom is ... Leonid Nevzlin," Russia's prosecutor-general's office said in a statement posted on its Web site www.genproc.gov.ru.

The statement adds another bizarre twist to the Litvinenko saga and could indicate Russia plans to up the pressure on the former owners of YUKOS, which has been dismembered and is now bankrupt after facing billions of dollars of back tax claims.


Nevzlin's spokesman dismissed the prosecutor-general's allegations: "Everyone knows the KGB's methods. These statements are ridiculous and do not warrant a response."

A trusted business partner of jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin has provoked the Kremlin's ire by slamming Putin for the destruction of YUKOS, which he says was political motivated.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-12-27T194045Z_01_L27556531_RTRUKOC_0_US-POISONING-RUSSIA-YUKOS.xml&WTmodLoc=IntNewsHome_C2_worldNews-4

[Kagemusha]

1. This is a classic example of why I distrust "everyone knows" statements

Because it's saying Putin must be guilty because... he must be guilty. And we're all to nod like good little lemmings.

[slackmaster]

2. I got an email from one of the YUKOS bosses

He says he has $1.42 million that he needs help moving out of the country.

[acmavm]

5. Well, did you give him your bank account number and

your Pay Pal number and all that other stuff that those e-mails usually ask for?

[slackmaster]

7. Yes, Social Security number, ATM PIN, credit card numbers, etc.

I figure he's taking a couple of days off for Christmas.

[lovuian]

3. What this tells me is Yukos Owners and Putin

are definitely at WAR with each other

thats what this tells me

[Union Thug]

4. Yukos owners = oligarchs=russian organized crime.

No surprises here.

[Eugene]

6. Russia is pointing fingers but where's the evidence?

I find the specifics conspicuously absent in the various news reports.
Russia is trying to have Nevzlin extradited from the U.S., so I trust
they will give the U.S. authorities something solid.

From Interfax:

Dec 27 2006 3:01PM

Russia demands that U.S. deport Nevzlin

MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax) - Russia has sent the relevant documents to the United States
demanding the extradition of former Yukos (RTS: YUKO) co-owner Leonid Nevzlin, in response
to a request from the U.S. branch of Interpol.

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has officially confirmed to the U.S. authorities
that Nevzlin was put on the international wanted list and that grave charges in absentia,
including organizing murders and attempted murders, had been brought against him, informed
sources in Moscow told Interfax.

"Washington's Interpol informed Russia that Nevzlin had been temporarily detained on the
basis of an earlier issued document on his detention when entering the U.S. on December 24,
but later the U.S. border control released him," the source said.

The U.S. released Nevzlin referring to the absence of a Russian-U.S. bilateral extradition
document, he said.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11654610

Russia has blamed exiles from the start. Other evidence points at Russia.
Let's see what the Russians have to prove their case.

[Lurking Dem]

8. Somehow, criminals in the

Russian government blaming a Jew seems vaguely familiar.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Murder added to Yukos charges July 28, 2004

By Julius Strauss in Moscow
July 28, 2004

A Moscow court yesterday charged Yukos' second largest shareholder with complicity in murder and attempted murder, in the latest attack on the men at the helm of the beleaguered Russian oil giant.

The court issued an arrest warrant against Leonid Nevzlin, a close associate of the company's former chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is being tried on multiple counts of tax evasion and fraud.

Egged on by hardliners in the Kremlin, the courts have for months been battering Yukos, once Russia's richest company, but this is the first time a leading shareholder has been charged with non-financial crimes.

According to the prosecutor, Nevzlin, who fled to Israel a year ago, had "struck a criminal pact" with the head of Yukos security to organise the murder of business opponents. Nevzlin did not comment yesterday but his lawyer said the Government was raising politically motivated charges as part of its continuing assault on the oil major.

Genry Reznik, one of Nevzlin's lawyers, told Russian media: "I believe that this is an artificial case. Its main purpose is to compromise and soil the reputation of Nevzlin."

The warrant for Nevzlin's arrest was issued by the Basmanny court which has ordered all the major Yukos arrests and has repeatedly refused requests for bail.

The court alleges that the murders and attempted murders were arranged by Alexei Pichugin, the former security chief at Yukos, on Nevzlin's orders. Pichugin was arrested in June 2003 and is awaiting trial.

According to the warrant, Nevzlin ordered Pichugin to kill a man named Sergei Gorin who had allegedly tried to blackmail him. Mr Gorin and his wife disappeared from the central Russian town of Tambov in 2002.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Litvinenko and "The Family"

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/12/litvinenko-and-family.html

Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Litvinenko and "The Family"
I am preparing what I hope will be a major piece which will attempt to connect the Litvinenko affair with, god help us, 9/11. If that seems outrageous -- well, I beg you to withhold judgment until you see the details.

In the meantime, this teaser:

The late Alexander Litvinenko was a former FSB spook who became a paid liar in the employ of Boris Berezovsky, the shadowy exiled Russian oligarch (and business partner of Neil Bush). Berezovsky hopes to destabilize Putin and take control of what was once the second superpower.

Before the assassination, few in Russia respected Litvinenko. Few outside of Russia heard of him. Now, a film will be made of his life. The project, starring Daniel Craig (the new James Bond), will derive, in large part, from Litvinenko's book Blowing up Russia.

In that work, Litvinenko attempts to demonstrate that Vladimir Putin was responsible for the apartment bombings of 1999. However, in “Storm in Moscow”: A Plan of the Yeltsin “Family” to Destabilize Russia, an extremely important paper written by the Hoover Institution's John B. Dunlop, a starkly different picture emerges. (Oddly, the Hoover Institute has wiped all trace of this paper from its site.) As Peter Dale Scott summarizes:

[Jack Rabbit]

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