MOSCOW, Feb 1, 2008 (AFP) - A Moscow court on Friday turned down a request from a jailed former manager of bankrupt oil giant Yukos, who has AIDS and cancer, to be transferred to hospital for care, a judge said.
"The defence's conclusions on the need for hospital treatment do not correspond to reality," judge Irina Oreshkina said at the hearing for Vasily Alexanyan, a former vice president of Yukos jailed for embezzlement.
"The request for changing his mode of detention was rejected," she said.
The case has attracted international attention from human rights groups and has prompted the former CEO of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is also in prison, to declare a hunger strike earlier this week.
Alexanyan's lawyer, Yelena Lvova, responded angrily to the court decision.
"We no longer have any illusions about justice.... The state has brought in the heavy artillery against a person who is fatally ill," Lvova said.
"The court decision goes beyond anything we could have imagined."
Alexanyan looked pale during the hearing. He wore tracksuit bottoms and a black coat. He made a statement declaring his innocence and denouncing Russia's judicial system ahead of the announcement of the court's decision.
"Everything that is happening is an abuse of justice. I am innocent. There was no crime -- it was all invented," Alexanyan said.
"The Gulag is alive.... Any innocent person can be arrested, accused of any crime and thrown into prison," he added.
"This will be a heavy blow for his parents. He is dying. It's cruelty," Alexanyan's brother, Garnik, told AFP.
In Russia, the Alexanyan case has caused agitation but been met with official silence. Human rights defenders have written to former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, pleading him to intervene with the Kremlin.
An ex-associate of Khodorkovsky -- Platon Lebedev -- also jailed in Siberia, said Friday he was ready to "go back" on his statements if that would help Alexanyan.
"He can be a witness against me as long as the torture stops for him," Lebedev told the Interfax agency.
Alexanyan, who is nearly blind, announced Thursday he is also suffering from a lymphatic cancer.
Since November 28, the European Court of Human Rights has on "three occasions requested Russian authorities transfer Alexanyan to a civil hospital" without success, said Lvova.
Around 100 people protested Friday at Pushkin square in the centre of Moscow, brandishing pickets and banners announcing "Putin's crew dishonours Russia", and, "sadistic judges to prison, life to Alexanyan".
Close to Khodorkovsky's team, Alexanyan was arrested in April 2006, just days after being promoted to vice-president of Yukos.
Formerly the foremost Russian oil company, Yukos declared bankcrupcy and was dismantled, with some of its management convicted of fraud.
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