White House hosts 2 Israeli-Russians wanted by Moscow

[rainbow4321]

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/535949.html


U.S. President George Bush on Thursday hosted two Israeli-Russian businessmen who are wanted by Moscow over alleged tax offenses.


The two are Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, stock holders in the giant Russian oil enterprise Yukos. The two currently reside in Israel, along with a business partner Leonid Nevzelin, in Herzliya. They were invited to a White House breakfast as guests of Congressmen Tom Lantos and Christopher Cox. Following a Russian request for their extradition, the two are wanted by the Interpol.

Brudno, Dubov and Nevzelin claim that their arrest warrants were issued at the order of the Russian president as part of a campaign of political intimidation against reformists. According to the three, former Yukos chairman Mikhail Khodorkovski, who has been sitting in a Moscow jail for the past 16 months, was arrested for the same reason.

Yukos and its major stockholders have supported centrist, democratic Russian political parties, and donated large sums of money. In recent years, Russian authorities began investigating the company, its managers and major stockholders, many of whom are of Jewish origin. The probes caused several of the managers to flee to Israel, and resulted in Khodorkovski's arrest and a Kremlin attack on Yukos. One of Yukos' largest divisions was recently sold.

[Tempest]

1. This is no surprise

Considering how many Iran-Contra criminals who work in his administration.

[Igel]

2. It would be nice if the article said what they were wanted for. n/t

[rainbow4321]

3. Another article: fraud and tax evasion

I really have no idea how true the "politically motivated" stuff is about this company and Putin, etc...I mainly posted the original post because I was thinking that seeing as how in Russia's/Putin's eyes these are wanted men, it may not go over too well that shrub has opened White House doors to them. The company itself has been in the TX news alot on the Net because of their Houston connections. Googling the Yukos and chimp's family name brings up a shitload of history, also.


http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2004/02/04/2003097450

Brudno, who owns more than 3 percent of Yukos, was charged last month with embezzlement, joining the other five core company shareholders being pursued by the legal authorities either in Russia or abroad in exile

"Being guided by a Yukos board of directors recommendation that no shareholders should interfere in the company's operational management, the Yukos management board adopted a decision today to relieve Mikhail Brudno of his duties as president of Yukos RM and as a member of the management board," the statement said.

The attack on Yukos is widely seen as politically motivated after Khodorkovsky angered President Vladimir Putin by financing opposition parties before December parliamentary elections, in which pro-Kremlin forces eventually triumphed

[Igel]

4. Tx. Embezzlement, huh?

This is another one of those situations where I look and I can't decide who I dislike more.

[rainbow4321]

5. And once again w/ this regime , it all comes down to oil.....

http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/yukos1230.php


How many U.S. billionaires have set up dummy offshore corporations in order to conceal their earnings? How many landlords have created management companies inside other management companies so tenants won't know where to go with their complaints? How many corporations have filed bankruptcy and reorganized under a new name in order to break union contracts and walk away from pension and healthcare obligations?

Creating dummy corporations is an old trick that U.S. companies know all too well. Nevertheless, they are waxing indignant that Russia would do such a thing.

The day after the auction, Putin went to U.S. capital's old rival, Germany, where he gave a press conference defending his government's sale of Yukos as legal and constitutional. He also indicated that Russia and China would be cooperating on building an oil pipeline. This is not new; even under Khodorkovsky, Yukos was in discussions with the China National Petroleum Corp. on a major oil pipeline from Eastern Siberia to China.

At that time the governments of Russia and China probably both worried about handing such a strategic project to a company so obviously in the pocket of the U.S. Now the worries will be coming from Washington.