Wednesday 7 April 2010

Charges are concocted to keep me behind bars, says Khodorkovsky

I have a personal interest in this case...

Charges are concocted to keep me behind bars, says Khodorkovsky

Yukos Oil was one of several interests owned by GM Investment ("GMI"), a subsidiary of the Menatep Group, largely owned (directly or indirectly), by Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, also named in the piece, above. Meanwhile, Alexei Pichugin, the former head of Yukos' security, has been convicted of several murders.

On the face of it, not people (I use the term, erm, wrongly), to fuck around with, if one is a mere mortal. However, Vladimir Putin is no mere mortal. According to Khodorkovsky, Putin pursued criminal charges of embezzlement against both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, Yukos was effectively bankrupted by claims of unpaid tax by the Russian authorities, and eventually passed into state hands.

Khodorkovsky claims that all this was done because he was supporting opposition parties, and Putin was seeking to cement his hold on power. Well, Dobby, as Putin is also known (although he's reportedly rather touchy about it), appears to be the sort of megalomaniac who would do that, but that's just my view, from a distance.

Hmmm. A plague on both your houses.

GMI approached my former employer, shortly before Lebedev was arrested back in, what, 2003, shortly after Khodorkovsky had been arrested and while Pichugin was being investigated on at least two counts of murder? They wanted to squirrel some money away (or so I interpreted it), and investing in hedge funds was the way to go, as far as they were concerned. So, this guy called Francois Buclez, who used to be some kind of big cheese at CSFB, if my memory serves me, started negotiations with my employer, which shall remain nameless (Albourne Partners Limited, Battersea Park, London), and eventually contracted through an offshore entity called Cube Fund Advisory Limited...

NCIS was never advised of GMI's approach, as far as I'm aware. My employer looked the other way. Albourne's Managing Director, Simon Ruddick, told me to shut the fuck up (I'm paraphrasing). How very human.

May the road rise up to meet you, Mr Khodorkovsky.

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