RAPSI News Moscow reports that at the conclusion of the Zamoskvoretsky Moscow Court hearing on 30 November, the prosecutor demanded the sentence of Aleksey Spirichev, the owner of enterprises controlled by YUKOS, to 13 years of imprisonment for tax evasion. Spirichev has also been charged with committing fraud.

The date of the sentencing is set for 14 December.

The trial is taking place in the absence of the accused. In March 2004, Spirichev escaped from the investigation; however he has been placed on the international wanted list and arrested in absentia. The Prosecutor General’s Office was trying to extradite Spirichev, who was at that time in Prague; but the Czech court rejected the prosecutor’s request for extradition.

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Spirichev was featured in the first trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky at the Meshchansky Court in Moscow, where he was convicted of tax evasion.

Some time ago Khodorkovsky’s lawyer Yuri Schmidt told RAPSI News that Spirichev’s case is one of those relating to the first case against his client. At that time, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were convicted for tax evasion.

According to Schmidt, the charges against Khodorkovsky in relation to his first trial stated that an organized group had been created; the group included people involved now in other, individual cases. Most of YUKOS’ managers did not wait for the fate of Khodorkovsky and fled Russia. Schmidt also stated that Russia’s supervisory authorities sent requests to extradite fugitive defendants, but were refused.

Now, according to Schmidt, the police are creating and sending cases to the court against those who were asked to be extradited, “because if they would not do it, it would look like those requests were sent for nothing”.