Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - December 8, 2008
Mike Eckel
The ruling regarding Vasily Aleksanian, who faces embezzlement and money-laundering charges, was a rare victory for defendants in the criminal cases against Yukos and its jailed founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The Moscow City Court set bail for Aleksanian at 50 million rubles ($1.8 million), spokeswoman Anna Usachyova said.
Aleksanian, a 36-year-old U.S.-trained lawyer who has been jailed since 2006, was moved to a clinic in February while lawyers demanded that he be released from custody given his health.
His trial was suspended earlier this year.
It was unclear when Aleksanian would be freed. Though some human rights defenders praised the ruling, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said the bail was excessive.
"Bail is very large. I don't know whether his relatives or Yukos will be able find a way to pay this since Yukos is bankrupt," she was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Aleksanian had been a vice president at Yukos and was a lawyer for Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian prison on fraud and tax evasion charges.
Once Russia's largest oil producer, Yukos was broken up and sold off in auctions in what was seen as the Kremlin's punishment for Khodorkovsky's political ambitions. Most of its assets were purchased at bargain prices by state-owned corporations.
Aleksanian's lawyers and supporters protested what they described as inhumane treatment and unsanitary conditions in the prison and the hospital.
The treatment of another Yukos lawyer, Svetlana Bakhmina, has also attracted wide attention. Bakhmina became pregnant while in custody and her supporters had called on President Dmitry Medvedev to grant her amnesty.
She was recently transferred to a clinic near Moscow and gave birth to a girl last month.
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