Experts who examined the legality of the second Yukos case on the Kremlin’s request denied on Sunday media reports that some of them received money from the oil company.
“The information distributed [by media] is incorrect, to put it mildly,” head of the presidential rights council, Mikhail Fedotov, told RIA Novosti.
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin confirmed on Sunday reports that members of rights groups funded by Yukos were involved in legal examination of the case against company bosses, but did not name any names.
But Fedotov said that only two rights activists, including him, were part of the working group that gave a critical assessment of the second Yukos case last year, and neither received any money from the company. Media reports identified earlier most of the group’s members as prominent Russian and foreign law professors.
Yukos has funded numerous human rights groups, including Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group, but no representatives of these organizations were on the working group, Fedotov said.
Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were jailed in 2005 on economic charges and had their sentences extended until 2016 in a related case in 2010.
Their supporters said the cases were revenge from then-President Vladimir Putin for Khodorkovsky’s political ambitions. Amnesty International has recognized Lebedev and Khodorkovsky prisoners of conscience following their second trial.
A legal check into the second Yukos case was requested by outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev. The check, completed in December, spoke about “fundamental violations” in the case and advised a retrial.
