Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center

Eternal memory. And never forget a thing

I first met this tall, lanky lad with the black hair around 15 years ago. He was then, I believe, 25 years old, a graduate of Moscow State University and Harvard.

To not notice a true talent - is hard. In a short time Vasily Alexanyan became the head of the YUKOS legal department - the second-largest, and subsequently the largest Russian oil company.

The company grew, and he grew along with it. Huge international contracts worth billions of dollars, fights in Russian and foreign courts, the creation of a modern electronic technology for forming management decisions (the same thing our government is planning to arrive at only by 2012 - that is, more than 10 years later!). He applied his bright, sharp mind to all these things.

Vasya was not at all a saint, he enjoyed having a good time, he loved beautiful cars, women. In short, he loved life in all its manifestations, but he nevertheless always remained a strong, absolutely reliable professional.

When I found myself in jail, - he became my lawyer and once again he fought in court, even though he suspected - but refused to believe - that everything had already been decided.

And then - with the same energy and reckless bravery - he tried to save the company.

They threatened him; after all, he was in a very real way interfering with their looting. But, being a man of the law to the marrow of his bones, - Vasya could never bring himself to believe that the law had truly been completely thrown out the window. He felt he would be able to protect the rights of tens of thousands of YUKOS shareholders by acting according to the law.

Arrest and jail on a phony charge became the payment for faith in law and justice.

But even in jail Vasily remained what he had always been - a man of the law and a man of honour.

By that moment he was deathly ill as the result of an infection acquired during an emergency blood transfusion after an accident. His vision, which began to deteriorate right after that incident, turned into out-and-out blindness in jail. But he continued to meticulously read, and later, having become factually blind, - listen to many pages of legal documents and give his commentaries to them. Commentaries that just might save someone from false charges. Might... if there were real courts.

They offered him a deal:
- You give the needed testimony against the company executives, and we let you out to go get medical treatment. You need to have it, after all!
- What testimony?
- What we tell you...

He refused. They denied him the medical treatment he so desperately needed. And in two years of jail the disease went through all the stages, all the way to the very last one. Fatal.

Are these - human beings?

Only when it was already too late to do anything, under pressure from an outraged public, did they transfer Vasya to a hospital, having shackled a sick person receiving cancer chemotherapy, - with handcuffs to the bed!

Are these - human being?

He did not yield. He fought in court, but the judges time and again refused to stop the trial so Vasya would have a chance to get proper medical treatment; they refused to release him from jail, "not believing" the doctors who were saying that the person was dying...

And only after the public's outrage did the abuse stop.

But even then, knowing that there was nothing that could be cured any more, - the judge and the prosecutor were trying to reopen the trial. Why the bureaucrats needed this - is comprehensible: they had to be able to report to their bosses that they were doing their job.

But are these really - human beings?

To the very end Vasya was trying to help those towards whom he felt a sense of responsibility. Responsibility as a friend, responsibility as a lawyer. He was trying to dictate legal commentaries, he was offering to give testimony, interviews.

The last time - a month before his difficult death.

This still-young lad turned out to be a real Human Being, someone for whom honour was dearer than life itself. And he had loved life so very much.

They took his life away from him, and they took him away from his family...

"They" - are the ones whose names he has named. But in our country only God is "their" judge.

There is so much more he could have accomplished...

Eternal memory to him.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky for Novaya Gazeta

"I grit my teeth and mourn, together with everybody else"

My sincerest condolences to Vasily Alexanyan's relatives and those who were close to him. This is all very bitter for me. Vasily became the power's latest victim in the so-called "YUKOS affair" after he had been subjected to torture, something that even the European Court acknowledged in a December 22, 2008 decision.

And this is the only way those low-life thugs in power know how to get rid of brilliant jurists who graduated from Harvard. I grit my teeth and mourn, together with everybody else.

Platon Lebedev

Born in Moscow on December 15, 1971, Alexanyan grew up in a highly educated, intellectual household. His Armenian father was an accomplished physicist, and his two brothers went on to build highly successful careers at Troika Dialogue and the Reuters news agency. Vasily was a distinguished student and legal rising star before joining Yukos in 1996. After graduating early from the Moscow State University, he went on to earn his LL.M. at Harvard University's School of Law by the age of 25, followed by two years at the prestigious U.S. law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

According to a 2008 article in the Moscow Times, when Mikhail Khodorkovsky hired Alexanyan to head the legal department of Yukos, the young lawyer made a bold request: that he always have direct access to Khodorkovsky and the top executives of the company. The request was granted, and Alexanyan became a key figure within the company leading the transformation of Yukos into one of Russia's most transparent, modern and well-managed companies.

However, when the Kremlin's legal assault began against Yukos, initiated by the arrests of Platon Lebedev and Khodorkovsky in 2003, he stepped down from his role in the corporation and advised the defendants in private capacity. As more and more executives were arrested, jailed, and chased from the country, the company was experiencing a breakdown in corporate structure, with all the lower level employees and accountants virtually taken hostage by the state.

In order to protect the company's rights when no other person could, Alexanyan stepped up in March of 2006 to assume the position of Executive Vice President of Yukos to reorganize the unresponsive subsidiaries and negotiate with the court-appointed bankruptcy manager, Eduard Rebgun. His attempt to legally defend the company would not be tolerated. After weeks of pressure, harassment, and repeated interrogations, Alexanyan himself was jailed on April 6, 2006.

What began as a brave affirmation by one individual that Russian law would prevail, Alexanyan's situation quickly deteriorated. He was placed in harsh pre-trial detention conditions, and a few months later discovered that he had been infected with HIV. Despite clear instructions from doctors that that a patient in this condition must receive regular anti-retroviral treatment, instead prosecutors denied his medicine and interfered with access to doctors as leverage. He was repeatedly pressured to provide false testimony in the second criminal case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky in exchange for medical care, but refused. As a result, he was kept in squalid and inhumane detention conditions (in a damp basement cell which reached temperatures as low as 5 degrees at night).

The treatment of Alexanyan appears to have been approved from very high up in the power structure. On three separate occasions, the European Court of Human Rights issued interim measures to the Russian government to provide medical care, and, on all three occasions, these orders were willfully ignored, and Alexanyan went on, untreated and generally ignored by the wider world, without anti-retrovirals for two years.

In these horrific conditions of torture with a compromised immune system, Alexanyan developed tuberculosis and full-blown lymphatic cancer, requiring the removal of his spleen and the near total loss of his vision.

It wasn't until international and domestic pressure significantly increased at the highest levels of Russia's political leadership, including private appeals from prominent personalities and public appeals from Amnesty International, members of the European Parliament, and the European Court of Human Rights, as well as a 14-day hunger strike by Khodorkovsky, Alexanyan was finally transferred to a medical facility in February 2008, nearly two years after his arrest. He was released on bail in January 2009, a few months shy of the third anniversary of his arrest. However Aleksanian had effectively already been effectively sentenced to death, a fact which was not lost upon him.

At the Russian Supreme Court on January 22, 2008, Alexanyan testified that when he was being denied medical treatment in detention, Salavat Karimov, former chief investigator in the Khodorkovsky-Lebedev cases, told him: "[t]he leadership of the Prosecutor General's Office understands that you must have medical treatment, maybe even not in Russia, you have a grave situation...We must have your testimony, because we can't support those charges that we're making against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. If you give evidence that suits the investigation, then we'll release you." Alexanyan further testified: "But I can't perjure myself, I can not frame innocent people, I refused to do this. And I think that no matter how horrible my condition may be right now, the Lord will protect me, that is why I did not do this, I can not buy my life like that..."

Amnesty International's May 2008 Human Rights Memorandum (document EUR 46/018/2008) called upon Russia to "[p]rovide all necessary medical treatment to Vasily Aleksanian, and investigate the failure of the authorities to provide him with prompt and appropriate medical attention." The memorandum further stated that "Amnesty International believes that the denial of medical treatment to Vasily Aleksanian constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

It is an important consolation to friends and colleagues of Vasily that he was able to spend his final days, home among his family, and far away from the frontlines of the ongoing battles surrounding this case. However there is nothing gentle about the way his life was so brutally and needlessly stolen. Much like the case of the whistle-blowing lawyer for Hermitage Capital, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison due to willful medical mistreatment, Alexanyan's arduously slow death sentence featured the identical mechanism of impunity, corruption, and a critical breakdown in the rule of law.

More than ever, the loss of another human life in such a case underscores the urgent need for the international community to stand up for human rights, especially by supporting diplomatic measures aimed at specifically the individual Russian officials involved in these crimes against humanity. In fact, Novaya Gazeta has already published a list of the individuals involved in the murder of Vasily Alexanyan. It would honor the memory of those sacrificed for us do something about it.

Throughout his persecution, human rights groups from around the world condemned Russia for its treatment of Alexanyan. See a list of statements highlighting Alexanyan's case:

• European Court of Human Rights Order to Provide treatment (2008)
• Statement by 17 Russian opposition leaders and human rights activists including Garry Kasparov, Lev Ponomarev and Boris Nemtsov

Amnesty International Statements:

• January 2008 (Coverage)
• February 2008
• January 2009

• Commentary by human rights lawyer Mark Mcdonald in The Guardian
• A statement on Alexanyan's tragic death from the former Yukos management

Noelle Lenoir, former French Minister for Europe (via Twitter):

"The death of Vasily Alexanyan, lawyer and former vice President of Yukos, a real tortured hero, further darkens Putin's regime."

Yury Schmidt, lawyer for Mikhail Khodorkovsky:

"I was talking with a friend of Alexanyan's three days ago. He told me that Vasily feels absolutely fine - he can eat, he can drink. But he lived all the time in such a state that if the slightest infection occurs, he could die in a second." ... "I would define his status as a prisoner of conscience, and at the same time as a hostage of the YUKOS affair, Because Alexanyan was not a target of persecution. "

Former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina:

"Alexanyan was a strong person. He led a full life. He was a self-made man. He could have achieved many things. Even with a serious illness, he could have lived much longer. His endless detention in prison, the blocking of his release despite any decisions of the European Court of Human Right, shortened his life significantly. Unfortunately, there will be no special conclusions made from this case. All of them do not care. They do not think about human lives, they think about some stars [on their epaulettes], about how to stay in the system and continue receiving their rations. The system lets them do what they do. As long as it lets them, their behaviour will remain the same".

Former YUKOS legal team members:

"It is frightful to think how much he had to go through. He did not give up. He left. He left undefeated."

French journalist Benjamin Quenelle for Les Echos:

"In another country, he might have had a long and distinguished career as a lawyer. In Russia, Vasily Alexanyan has died just weeks before his fortieth birthday."

Former YUKOS Oil Company chief financial officer, Bruce Misamore:

"This is a truly tragic end for a guiltless person that exposes again the heartless and corrupt ruling class in the Russian Federation, and continues the line of abuses typified by the fates of Sergei Magnitsky and others. This needless death of a truly talented and award winning lawyer who posed no threat nor acted illegally is solely the responsibility of the government of the Russian Federation and its vindictive leadership under Vladimir Putin."

Valeriy Borshchev, a member of the Russian presidential council on human rights:

"The time Vasily Alexanyan spent in the pre-trial detention centre speeded up his death. The conditions of his detention were barbarous. When he was in the pre-trial detention center, the government resolution that detainees suffering from certain illnesses may be released from punishment did not apply to him. The resolution applied to convicted persons, but it did not apply to persons under investigation who were not yet convicted. Only after Magnitskiy's case did we raise this issue. Of course, this is a murder. The correctional system and law-enforcement bodies are responsible for Alexanyan's untimely death. They could let him live longer, they could change the conditions, but they chose not to do so".

French newspaper Liberation:

"[During ten days of Alexanyan's case two years ago] he was left without any medical assistance to force him to testify against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, jailed since 2003."

Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomarev:

"He would still be alive if he hadn't spent a long time in solitary confinement and had received medical treatment in time The correctional system, law enforcement agencies are responsible for Alexanyan's death." ... "Alexanyan's death, no doubt, was hastened by the fact that he was kept in prison for a long time while he was seriously sick. He went blind in prison. We have a cruel system. And people are cruel, not only the system."

Human rights activist and Chairman of the Solidarity charitable fund Valery Borshchyov:

"It was practically a murder. He could have lived longer if he had not been kept in detention."... "It is the murder of a person suffering from such serious illnesses, and he was even handcuffed to a bed... this is an abuse, this is barbaric. Being in such circumstances of torture has accelerated his death." ... "It makes sense to initiate an investigation into Alexanyan's conditions of detention in custody, as well as the actions of judges and the law enforcement authorities."

Le Figaro journalist Jean-Marc Gonin:

"The fate of Vasily Alexanyan has become the symbol of the arbitrariness of the Russian prison system."

Platon Lebedev's lawyer Konstantin Rivkin:

"In order to prevent people from dying, you just need to obey the law." ... "If the investigators and judges abide it [the Criminal Procedural Code], then tax consultant Magnitsky, entrepreneur Vera Trifonova, or Vasily Alexanian would not die."

Journalist Ilia Milshtein:

"In fact, he shared the fate of the unfortunate Magnitsky - with the only difference that he was not tortured to death in prison and sent home to die."

Former top manager at YUKOS, Roman Khomenko:

"A fantastic lawyer not only because of his Harvard education, but because of the fact that he won a case in an open competition with Kenneth Dart. This is a historical fact. [He defeated] Dart, who bankrupted Brazil."

Journalist Valery Panyushkin:

"I think there is no doubt that Vasily Alexanyan was killed."

April 6, 2006 The Simonovsky District Court of Moscow discerned features of a corpus delicti in the actions of Vasily Alexanyan and gave approval to the Procuracy-General to bring the YUKOS executive vice president to criminal liability. On that same day Vasily Alexanyan was detained, while the Procuracy-General brought charges against him under two articles of the Criminal Code - of legalisation, laundering of monetary funds (article 174.1 para 4) and embezzlement or misappropriation, that is theft, of another's property (article 160).

April 7, 2006 The Basmanny Court sanctioned the arrest of Vasily Alexanyan.

September 2006 Vasily Alexanyan was declared to be infected with HIV. But medical treatment did not begin. On the other hand, blackmail did begin - in exchange for the needed testimony the investigators promised Alexanyan liberty, or factually life. Towards the end of 2007 Vasily Alexanyan's health deteriorated so much that the European Court thrice indicated Interim Measures for his prompt hospitalisation in a specialised civil inpatient facility. All of them were ignored.

December 27, 2007 Vasily Alexanyan makes a statement to journalists and the human rights community. The public finds out that the "Alexanyan case" is absolutely unprecedented - what is being spoken of is a human life. From the appeal: "As the result of unlawful nearly two-year detention in prison even before trial, I, being for all intents and purposes blind, have been brought to a critical deathbed condition through the conscious, well-planned joint actions of prosecutors, investigators, judges, and prison doctors".

January 22, 2008 Vasily Alexanyan takes part in a session of the Supreme Court through a video conference link. In his presentation he unmasks the investigation's methods: "Salavat Karimov said to me: the leadership of the Procuracy-General understands that you must have medical treatment, maybe even not in Russia, you have a grave situation. We, he says, must have your testimony, because we can't support those charges that we're making against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. If you give evidence that suits the investigation, then we'll release you. And he offered me the concrete mechanism of this deal".

January 29, 2008 Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced a hunger strike in solidarity with Vasily Alexanyan. The first three days the hunger strike were without liquids; for the remaining eleven days Mikhail Khodorkovsky drank only water. Khodorkovsky's demand - that Alexanyan be transferred to a civil inpatient facility.

January 30, 2008 Preliminary hearings with respect to the case of Vasily Alexanyan began in the Simonovsky Court. On the first day the session ended with the calling of an ambulance.

January 31, 2008 Doctors of the "Matrosskaya tishina" SIZO reported to Vasily Alexanyan that he had been discovered to have yet another fatal disease - lymphoma. It was likewise still suspected that he could have tuberculosis.

February 6, 2008 The Simonovsky Court, taking account of Vasily Alexanyan's grave illness, adopted a decision on suspending proceedings with respect to the case. In so doing, the court denied a motion by Vasily Alexanyan's defence to change the measure of restraint for him.

February 8, 2008 Vasily Alexanyan is transferred from the infectious diseases ward of the "Matrosskaya tishina" SIZO to an unknown hospital. Information on Vasily Alexanyan's new whereabouts is concealed from lawyers and relatives.

February 9, 2008 Lawyers independently find the hospital to which Vasily Alexanyan had been sent, but they are not allowed to meet with their client in the course of a week.

February 16, 2008 Vasily Alexanyan recounted to lawyer Gevorg Dangyan that he was being held shackled to the bed in the hospital ward.

February 18, 2008 The Moscow City Court changes the measure of restraint for Vasily Alexanyan: instead of detention - bail. Vasily Alexanyan himself will call the 50 million ruble sum of the bail a "cynical mockery of law and common sense". Relatives begin the collection of funds. But all of Vasily Alexanyan's property has been arrested, and the family can not find the demanded 50 million rubles - a bank account is opened for those desiring to help.

December 22, 2008 The European Court of Human Rights adopts yet another decision with respect to the case of Vasily Alexanyan. In Strasbourg they rule that his "detention is unacceptable".

December 30, 2008 The bail has been paid, the sentries leave Vasily Alexanyan's ward.

January 12, 2009 Vasily Alexanyan is released from the hospital for home treatment.

June 24, 2010 The Simonovsky District Court of Moscow dismissed the criminal case in relation to Vasily Alexanyan in connection with the expiration of the statutes of limitation for bringing him to criminal liability.

October 3, 2011 Vasily Georgievich Alexanyan dies at his home. He was 39 years old.

As published by Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta

INVESTIGATORS

BASTRYKIN, Alexander Ivanovich, head of the Investigative Committee. He controlled the investigations into the "YUKOS cases", including the cases of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, Alexanyan, Bakhmina, Valdes Garcia and others. He exercised direct and immediate leadership of the investigators under him.

BIRYUKOV, Yuri Stanislavovich, First Deputy General Prosecutor (from June 2000 through June 2006.). Through changing heads of the "investigative group", he ensured the continual character of the prosecutions - he sanctioned searches in law offices and banks, seizures of lawyers' dossiers and bank documents. With the objective of impeding business activity, he issued a directive for the arrest of the bank accounts of YUKOS group enterprises. He sanctioned the opening of criminal cases based on materials in relation to Alexanyan.

GREEN, Viktor Yakovlevich, Deputy General Prosecutor. He sanctioned and insisted on the detention of the gravely ill Alexanyan, sent his case to trial, being conscious of the deathly dangerous character of his actions.

KARIMOV, Salavat Kunakbayevich, senior investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Procuracy-General, advisor to the General Prosecutor. He headed the investigative groups with respect to the investigation of the first Khodorkovsky-Lebedev case, as well as the cases of Nevzlin, Bakhmina, Alexanyan and others. In 2008, appearing in the Supreme Court, Vasily Alexanyan, one of those convicted in the "YUKOS affair", reported to those present that in the course of the investigation Karimov had offered him a deal - "release in exchange for testimony against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev". Alexanyan refused, after which, in his words, the conditions of detention were made a lot worse for him, while the HIV infection went through a course that takes 10-12 years with proper medical treatment in a year and a half.

We shall cite a fragment of the hearing in the SC:

"On 22 November of 2006, the procuracy realized that there were problems with Alexanyan (towards 22 November the forensic medical examination, which they had been giving the HIV - infected Alexanyan for an unprecedentedly long time - three months - was ready) Because there is just one illness that has a legal definition in the law - a fatal incurable disease. This is a sentence that can not be appealed. Death is not subject to appeal. I am prepared to answer for my every word that I am about to say. The preliminary investigation was found completely under the control of the procuracy then. And what happens?

"On 28 December 2006, under the pretext of familiarization with some kind of materials, they take me out to the building of the Procuracy-General. I am explaining why I am still in jail, still locked up, dying here. And investigator Salavat Kunakbayevich Karimov personally - as it turned out, he was then only preparing the new absurd charges against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev - offers me a deal. The lawyers are present here. In front of them I was brought to him, we were left alone. He said to me: the leadership of the Procuracy-General understands that you must have medical treatment, maybe even not in Russia, you have a grave situation. We, he says, must have your testimony, because we can't support those charges that we're making against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. If you give evidence that suits the investigation, then we'll release you. And he offered me the concrete mechanism of this deal. You write me an application for me to transfer you to the IVS [Temporary Holding Isolator] on Petrovka 38, and investigators will work actively with you there for a week or two. And when we get that testimony that will suit the leadership, we will exchange it, as he put it, signature-for-signature, i.e. I put a decree on changing the measure of restraint on the table for you, while you sign the interrogation record.

"In so doing, he was doing everything he could to persuade me to do this and was displaying the title pages of the interrogations of supposedly other persons who had agreed to help the investigation to me. But I can't perjure myself, I can not frame innocent people, I refused to do this. And I think that no matter how horrible my condition may be right now, the LORD will protect me, because I did not do this, I can not buy my life like that. (THE JUDGE PERMITS ALEXANYAN TO SIT DOWN). Next they made the conditions of detention a lot worse for me. Here, this isolator, SIZO No. 99/1 - this is a special jail, it isn't public at all, it's quite a challenge to even find it. Not more than a hundred people are held there even at peak times. They held me in cells like these! They still remember Beria and Abakumov! The mildew, and the fungus, and the staphylococcus there eat your skin alive. This despite the fact that people know that my immunity has been destroyed. These are fascists, plain and simple!".

At the present time Salavat Karimov is, as before - an advisor to general prosecutor Chaika.

LAKHTIN, Valery Alexeyevich, senior prosecutor of the Second Section for Supervision over Investigation of Criminal Cases in the Investigative Committee of the Department for Supervision over Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Procuracy-General. Being one of the supervising prosecutors for the actions of the investigative group, it is specifically he who bears direct and immediate responsibility for the torture in relation to Alexanyan, since he personally initiated his detention, interrogated and refused to release him, knowing about the illnesses of the accused.

RUSANOVA, Tatiana Borisovna, can be said to be the "army buddy" and closest assistant of Salavat Karimov in what concerns the "YUKOS affair". Official position - deputy head of section of the Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee. Until 2007 - investigator of an investigative group of the Procuracy-General, Department for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Procuracy-General. After 2007 - investigator of an investigative group of the Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee, junior counsellor of justice. In the composition of investigative groups, she implemented the prosecution of YUKOS employees: Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Alexanyan, Bakhmina, Nevzlin, Malakhovsky, Pereverzin and Valdes Garcia. She systematically exerted unlawful pressure on witnesses and accuseds with the objective of compelling them to give false testimony. She is an accessory to the drawing up of bills of indictment and of the charges themselves.

In the words, of Vasily Alexanyan, said by him in that same Supreme Court in January of 2008, Rusanova in the course of his interrogation was offering him the very same deal as had her boss Karimov - freedom and medical treatment in exchange for testimony against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. "On 15 November (of 2007 - V.Ch.) they extended the term of detention for me, on 27 November investigator Tatiana Borisovna Rusanova - who has always been the closest assistant of Salavat Kunakbayevich Karimov, now an advisor to Prosecutor-General Chaika, if anyone doesn't know - showed up to see me. And she made me that same offer again, this time in the presence of one of my defenders, who is now found in the [court]room: Testify and we will conduct yet another forensic medical examination and will release you from detention. These are criminals!", - recounted Alexanyan in court.

KHATYPOV, Radmir, senior investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Procuracy-General, counsellor of justice. He was pressing for the detention of the gravely ill Alexanyan. On par with Karimov and Rusanova he likewise was offering the latter a deal - medical treatment in exchange for testimony. Excerpts from Alexanyan's 22 January 2008 presentation in the Supreme Court: "In the month of April <of the year 2007>, investigator Khatypov - I'm naming names, because these people must one day be held responsible, - says to my defender who is present here: let him admit guilt, let him agree to the conditions and the procedure, and we'll let him out. All this time, by the way, not only were they not prescribing medical treatment for me, they didn't even want to take me out for repeat tests. This is torture, you understand, torture! Natural, legally authorized torture! <They say> I am refusing medical treatment! This is drivel! You're now seeing me via television relay, apparently, in black-and-white depiction. If you were to see <me> right now in the courtroom, you would be horrified. On my face, I've got the tracks of the after-effects of those diseases that I'm carrying on me right now. <They> want to create a precedent out of me, collateral estoppel. We are men of law, we understand, by art. 90 of the CCP [Code of Criminal Procedure]. They don't need to prove anything any more against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, and the other managers. In the month of June <of the year 2007> a serious relapse began. For three weeks, every day I begged them to take me out to a doctor. But instead of this, they were even restricting the transmission to me of commonplace medicines, which reduce pain, pain shock. Do you understand what they were doing! The devil is in the details. They tormented me with hunger, with cold, I slept with my clothes on for a year. Two degrees, three degrees [Celsius]. Water running down the walls. Mildew. This is the 21st century. What are you doing! Well, not you, but the authorities. What are you doing?! <...> They've brought things to the point where even the doctors look upon me with horror. You know what these indices mean that Yelena Yulianovna read out <The lawyer Yelena Lvova recounted to the court that the HIV -infected Alexanyan has an immunological status of 4%, while [his] virus load - is more than a million copies per millilitre>? Over a million and 4%. That would be enough for two corpses. Over a hundred thousand, and doctors are already tearing out their hair. I fly off the scale on their instrument".

VLASOV, Nikolai Vasilievich, senior prosecutor of the Section for Support of the State Prosecution of the Department of the Procuracy-General for Ensuring Participation of Prosecutors in the Examination of Criminal Cases. Employee of the Procuracy-General, counsellor of justice. While still a rank-and-file counsellor of justice, he achieved detention in jail for deputy head of the YUKOS legal department Svetlana Bakhmina. Vlasov was insisting that, children notwithstanding, she should nevertheless be punished with all the severity of the law. RESULT: in April 2006 Bakhmina was sentenced to 7 years of deprivation of liberty for theft and non-payment of taxes, in September the Moscow City Court reduced the term of punishment by half a year. After the pronouncement of the verdict prosecutor Vlasov declared that "the court issued a rightful decision", having gotten to the bottom of "a heavy case".

In that same Simonovsky Court, Vlasov appeared as the state prosecutor with respect to the case of Vasily Alexanyan, arrested on a charge of theft of the shares of Tomskneft and the property of the Eastern Oil Company and laundering and legalization of monetary funds. Attempting not to allow the expiration of the deadlines for criminal prosecution, he was insisting on continuing the prosecution of a gravely ill person. Alexanyan was held in a SIZO for more than 2.5 years, despite the discovery that he had HIV, and tuberculosis and cancer of the lymph nodes contracted in detention. At the end of 2008 Alexanyan was finally released on bail of RUB 50 mln., but after a couple of months had passed prosecutor Vlasov intervened in the case, having doubts about the reliability of the data about the state of health of the defendant. To check this information the prosecutor initiated a recess in the trial. The procedure for the dismissal of the case in relation to Alexanyan took up another year and a half - only in June 2010 did the Simonovsky Court agree to stop the trial due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, in so doing, true, never having established a diagnosis of the guilt or innocence of the former YUKOS employee.

GANIYEV, Farit, investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Procuracy-General, of the Investigative Committee. In the composition of investigative groups, he implemented prosecution with respect to the cases of Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Alexanyan, Bakhmina, Ivlev, Malakhovsky, Pereverzin, Valdes Garcia et al.

YURZDITSKY [JURZDICKI], Igor, investigator of an investigative group of the Procuracy-General, jurist 2 class. In the composition of investigative groups, he implemented the prosecution of YUKOS employees. Including Vasily Alexanyan.

MARKELOV, Sergey, acting head of the Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee. He implemented direct and immediate leadership of the investigation with respect to the case against Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Alexanyan, Pereverzin, Malakhovsky and Valdes Garcia. He covered up for the interests of the persons directly and immediately implementing repressions, refusing to grant motions and appeals to the defence of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.

TUMANOV, Mikhail, Senior Investigator for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Procuracy-General. He headed the investigation with respect to the cases in relation to Nevzlin, Burganov, Gololobov, Bakhmina, Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Alexanyan. He detained accuseds and took them into custody, investigated cases (no fewer than six), sent them to trial.

ALYSHEV, Valery Alexeyevich. Head of the First Section of Department No. 2 for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the MID of the IC under the RF Procuracy. From 2003 he entered into Salavat Karimov's investigative group. In the composition of investigative groups, he implemented the prosecutions of Alexanyan and other YUKOS employees.

IOGAN [JOHAN], Alexander Vladimirovich, investigator of an investigative group of the Procuracy-General, counsellor of justice, before this - investigator for particularly important cases of the procuracy of Kurgan Oblast. In the composition of investigative groups, he implemented the unlawful prosecution of Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Alexanyan, Bakhmina, et al.

LYUTOV, Ye.A. Senior prosecutor of the Section for Supervision over Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Department for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Procuracy-General. In the Basmanny Court on 23.08.2006, he supported the investigator's motion for the extension of the term of detention of the gravely ill Alexanyan until 02.12.2006.

JUDGES

DUDAR, Natalia Nikolayevna, judge of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow. In her time, she was extending detention for the gravely ill Alexanyan.

RASNOVSKY, Andrei Vladimirovich, judge of the Moscow City Court. He denied motions for the release of the gravely ill Alexanyan.

TRUBNIKOV, Alexander Nikolayevich, judge of the Basmanny Court. In his time, he extended the term of detention for Alexanyan.

YARLYKOVA, Yelena Nikolayevna, former judge of the Basmanny Court. She selected detention for Alexanyan. In September 2009, the qualification collegium of judges of the city of Moscow stripped judge Yarlykova of her authority prematurely: she paid for having released the wrong inmate in the courtroom.

MUSHNIKOVA, Natalia Yevgenievna, judge of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow. She issued an order to extend Alexanyan's term in detention, was denying defence appeals against the actions of the investigation.

KUZNETSOVA, N.S., judge of the Moscow City Court. She extended Alexanyan's detention.

NAIDENOV, Yevgeny, judge of the Moscow City Court. He was in the spotlight twice in the "YUKOS affair". The first time - as an investigator of the Procuracy-General, when his charge turned into 20 years of confinement in jail for former head of the oil company's security service Alexey Pichugin. Subsequently, by the way, new charges and new sentences increased the severity of the punishment to a life term. Yevgeny Naidenov was personally responsible for attaining 20 of the years of the life sentence in jail for Pichugin in 2005. The second time Naidenov crossed paths with the scandalous case already in a judge's robe - in March 2008, already being chairman of the Cassation Collegium of the Moscow City Court he refused to change the measure of restraint for the deathly ill Vasily Alexanyan, who had contracted tuberculosis and cancer of the lymph nodes in jail on top of the HIV virus he was discovered to have.

NEDELINA, Olga Anatolievna, judge of the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow. They [sic] took active part in the prosecution of Alexanyan - they extended the term of detention, left him in detention for the period of medical treatment, resumed a suspended case, upon the termination of proceedings with respect to the case they left all his property under arrest.

RYZHOVA, Anastasia Vasilievna, judge of the Moscow City Court. She denied appeals against an order to extend Alexanyan's detention.

ORESHKINA, Irina Vladimirovna, judge of the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow. She adopted the decision on the presence in Alexanyan's actions of the features of a crime, sanctioned searches, refused to have the gravely ill accused placed in an inpatient facility.

KORNEYEVA, Tatiana Pavlovna, judge of the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow. She was born in 1954. She sentenced former deputy head of the YUKOS legal department Svetlana Bakhmina to seven years of colony. She was extending the term of detention for the gravely ill Alexanyan.

The "Magnitsky Case": The judge who had permitted the opening of a criminal case against the Hermitage Fund lawyer on 26 November 2008, asserting that after the companies had been unlawfully embezzled, their directors could no longer issue Powers of Attorney, and lawyers could not represent them, in order to fight for the return of the company. The judge accepted as confirmatory evidence documents that had been presented by MVD official Kuznetsov and his subordinates, as a response to their having earlier been mentioned by Hermitage lawyers in several appeals relative to abuse of official position and fraud of $230 million.

PILGANOVA, Vera Mikhailovna, judge of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow. She was extending the term of detention for the gravely ill Alexanyan.

FOMIN, Dmitry Anatolievich, judge of the Moscow City Court. He extended detention for the gravely ill Alexanyan.

YEGOROVA, Olga Alexandrovna, chairwoman of the Moscow City Court. According to the data of the defence of former YUKOS employees, she directed the activity of all the judges of the city of Moscow aimed at allowing the bringing to criminal liability, detention, approval of unlawful investigative actions and conviction of the knowingly innocent Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Alexanyan, Bakhmina and many other persons within the framework of the YUKOS cases.

JAILERS

Tagiyev, Fikret, chief of SIZO 77/1 (Matrosskaya Tishina). During the holding of Alexanyan in the SIZO, he denied him, as well as Platon Lebedev medical attention.

Kalinin, Yuri, during the times when Alexanyan was found in "Matrosskaya tishina" - director of the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments of the MJ RF, subsequently deputy minister of justice. He knew about how Alexanyan was not being rendered assistance in the jail.

LIVE FOREVER AND DIE YOUNG: IN MEMORY OF VASILY ALEXANYAN.

In April of 2006 I received a telephone call from an acquaintance of mine, a journalist with the Vedomosti newspaper, who is currently working successfully in an investment business run by one of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's former business partners (one of those who luckily managed to avoid the repressions). She asked me if I knew where Vasily Alexanyan was, and if I could provide her with his London telephone number, - having in mind that, naturally, he had already left Russia long ago. I was not able to give her his London telephone number, because at that very moment I was sitting drinking tea with Vasily in the Veranda at Dacha restaurant outside of Moscow, trying to convince him that he should leave Russia. But my conversation partner was refusing to leave, making the argument to me that in order for Truth to triumph he must remain in his country.

Vasya was asking me whether the General Prosecutor's Office's threats were serious - just two days before our conversation, he had become executive vice president of YUKOS, and now had to live in the expectation that he could be arrested at any moment. The natural reaction of any rational human being would be to advise: "Vasya, you've got to get out of here!"
But you had to know Vasya!

The first time I saw him was twenty years ago, at Moscow University, when a selection process was taking place for a student trip to Germany to attend a European Community seminar on environmental law - a thought that sounded absolutely ridiculous back then in the USSR. A bit later, Vasily became a participant in an exchange program between MGU and the Columbia University Law School in New York.

These were the very first student exchanges that did not have to include straight-A students from the "party-economic aktiv"; unfortunately, these exchanges subsequently died away and were discontinued for understandable reasons. Those were truly "golden graduating classes", and nowadays many of us - from back then - are working in senior positions with the biggest Western and Russian law firms or are well-known lawyers, heads of the legal departments of the country's leading companies, and even a few of the leaders of the Russian Government.

Then Vasya went to Harvard. To pay for his education, he borrowed money from some somewhat less than savoury characters. But even these "characters" believed that Vasya - would repay the debt. He was a man of his word - always - and he stood behind what he said.

Alexanyan returned from Harvard University (there is nothing more impressive than this in the world of jurisprudence, period, no matter what anyone else might tell you) and once again fell into debt, in order to pay off that old student loan of his. He refused to do occasional pick-up work and said that he would agree only to the highest-paying job. His motto was - all or nothing! In the end he was hired by Yukos - a company that soon became the best in the country. Vasya worked a lot and they paid him a lot; he was not ashamed of this, nor was he ashamed that he did not conceal the big taxes that he had to pay. Vasya was an adventurous risk-taker, enjoyed having a drink, and was a player in the broadest sense of the word. And Life played this game with him. Vasily was loved by women like nobody else, and this superiority of his - one of many - evoked the spiteful hatred of ill-wishers. As in everything else, these were the most beautiful women in the world! And the world envied him!

He was a religious person; moreover, he was the same in his faith as he was in love, - passionate. He knew the Holy Scripture by heart. He felt that you must not live by falsehood. You should not lie to others, but most importantly - you should not lie to yourself, you should never make justifications for dirty dealing and low behaviour.
He tried to live every day like it was his last; he was just the sort of person about whom one could say: live beautifully, long, and... die young.

But the main thing was that Vasya was the most talented one of us, the most clever, the most beautiful, the most well-read - he freely spoke and read several European languages - but he was also a positively cracking good mate, always ready to lend a hand whenever times got tough.

When they locked Vasya up, he did not expect that the level of his opponents would be so troglodytic. His persecutors, who were not worth one hair on Vasya's head, turned out to be people from another planet, right out of the stone age, uneducated low-lives and liars.

Never did Vasily pressure Khodorkovsky and Lebedev with his gave situation; he did not moan and he did not whine. He bore his trials and tribulations with the greatest courage and dignity.

Vasily is survived by his parents - uncle Zhora and auntie Nadya - remarkably good people, who can be rightfully proud of their son: they raised him very well indeed.

Vasily is also survived by his son Georgy, who is ten years old. And I want Georgy to know that his father died not out of immorality or greed, not out of arrogance or covetousness, not out of an affected religiosity that is used to conveniently justify all manner of dirty deeds and licentious behaviour. No, Vasily Georgievich Alexanyan - is a hero, who did not die, but perished for each of us, so that we would never forget the names of his persecutors, which are now well known to all.

Some people live for glory, some for money, some for peace and comfort, but Vasya was always a person who lived for the happiness and freedom of others. He lived for Truth and he died for Truth! The name of Vasily Georgievich Alexanyan will appear on the pages of contemporary history textbooks.

And another thing. I have often heard from people who do not like YUKOS, but do like the YUKOS affair, that the former employees of the company who have ended up in prison and are complaining about their health are - speculators. Who want to deceive the investigation and get out as quickly as possible, and whose illnesses will dissipate in a flash the moment they are at liberty.

Vasya Alexanyan became the first one to respond to this. With his fate, his life and his death.

Anton Drel, 1992 graduate of MGU,
lawyer