YUKOS: Vasily Aleksanian, Mikhail Khodorkovsky

A gravely ill former executive of the dismantled Russian oil giant Yukos complained that he was being forced to attend hearings in a Moscow court as his embezzlement and money-laundering trial got under way Wednesday.
Vasily Aleksanian, who has AIDS, is the latest executive from Yukos to go on trial in the continuing criminal prosecution of officials from the company that was once Russia's largest oil producer.
Among the executives who have been targeted is Yukos' billionaire founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud in a distant Siberian prison colony.
Khodorkovsky's lawyers said the jailed tycoon has gone on a hunger strike in support of Aleksanian, who angrily denied assertions by prison officials that he had refused treatment for AIDS.
"This is quite simply murder," an unshaven and weary-looking Aleksanian told reporters after being escorted by two armed prison guards to the courtroom cage where defendants in Russian criminal trials typically are kept. "If they could shoot people these days, it would be done that way.
"This is illegal," he said. "I am physically unfit to be present at this trial."
Aleksanian was arrested in April 2006, shortly after being named vice-president of Yukos. His arrest followed the May 2005 conviction of Khodorkovsky and the subsequent breakup of Yukos to pay back taxes and fines. Most of its assets were purchased at bargain prices by state-owned corporations.
Many observers say Khodorkovsky and his company were targeted because of his political ambitions.
Aleksanian told reporters that the case was brought against him for purely political reasons. "I was only arrested because I was made vice-president of the company," he said.
Defence lawyer Yelena Lvova told reporters that she had asked the Simonovsky District Court for more time to study material from the case. She said given Aleksanian's declining health - he has developed tuberculosis and cancer while in prison - he is unable to study the material himself because his illnesses have left him virtually blind.
The hearing went on for nearly seven hours before the court adjourned until Thursday.
The European Court of Human Rights last week called on authorities to move Aleksanian from prison to a clinic specializing in AIDS treatment. Drew Holiner, Aleksanian's representative before the European Court, said Russian authorities had ignored three similar, interim rulings from the court last year.
"I hope the Russian government will come to its senses and comply immediately," Holiner said
Russia's government-appointed rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, also weighed in Wednesday, calling for authorities to provide the prisoner with appropriate medical treatment, the Interfax news agency reported.
Leonid Nevzlin, a businessman who now lives in self-imposed exile in Israel trying to avoid Yukos-related criminal prosecution, said in a statement that Khodorkovsky's hunger strike was being carried out on behalf of all Yukos prisoners.
"The Russian authorities have gone from imprisonment of innocent political prisoners to killing them," said Nevzlin said in a statement.
Interfax also quoted the head of the federal prison service in Chita, where Khodorkovsky is serving time, could face disciplinary measures for refusing to take food.