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http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/russia-claims-yukos-links-to-exspys-murder/2006/12/28/1166895423618.html
Russia claims Yukos links to ex-spy's murder
Email Print Normal font Large font Steven Myers in Moscow
December 29, 2006
THE RUSSIAN Prosecutor General's Office has produced a new twist in the murder investigation of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, by claiming a link with Yukos oil executives.
In a statement released on Wednesday the prosecutor's office said its investigation showed a connection between the radiation poisoning of Mr Litvinenko and criminal cases under way against former Yukos executives. It singled out Leonid Nevzlin, a main shareholder and partner of the company's jailed chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The accusation is an effort by the Russian Government to tie Mr Litvinenko's death to what it claims is a convoluted web of economic and other crimes that destroyed Yukos, once Russia's richest company. Russia's prosecution of Yukos was widely seen as a Kremlin-led campaign against a company defiant of the President, Vladimir Putin.
A spokesman for Mr Nevzlin, who lives in self-imposed exile in Israel, dismissed the accusations as "ridiculous".
The accusation against Yukos comes as a dispute between Gazprom, the Russian energy monopoly, and Belarus worsened. Gazprom reacted angrily on Wednesday to a suggestion from Belarus that it would pull natural gas out of export pipelines rather than pay a higher price for the fuel.
About 8 per cent of the European Union's gas imports pass through Belarus, which imports natural gas for domestic consumption and transits fuel to markets further to the west. Gazprom warned Poland, Lithuania and Germany of possible supply disruptions.
"We are interdependent," the Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, Vladimir Semashko, said during an interview on Russian state television. "If I don't have a domestic gas supply contract, Gazprom won't have a transit deal."
About 20 per cent of Gazprom's exports to Europe go via Belarus, and 80 per cent through Ukraine. Mr Semashko brushed aside Gazprom's threat to halt supplies to Belarus. "With Ukraine there was an attempt like this. After two days, everything fell back into place."
A price dispute between Ukraine and Russia at the beginning of the year led to a two-day embargo that caused jitters among Gazprom's European customers.
Gazprom responded to Belarus's defiance by issuing a deadline to shut off the gas.
"You shouldn't expect new year's presents from Gazprom," a company spokesman said. "Gazprom is not Santa Claus."
Mr Nevzlin, meanwhile, who has long evaded Russian attempts at extradition, arrived in the US on Sunday prompting new demands by the Russians that the Americans arrest him.
Mr Nevzlin's name has surfaced in connection with the Litvinenko case before. He met Mr Litvinenko before his poisoning and after his death said Mr Litvinenko had provided him with a dossier that "shed light on most significant aspects of the Yukos affair". The dossier's contents are not known, but Mr Nevzlin said he had handed them to British investigators.
The New York Times
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