Yesterday, the Moscow City Court dismissed the appeal of businesswoman Olga Mirimskaya’s lawyers against her detention.
In a mysterious way, two witnesses in the Yukos case started experiencing serious legal issues in December 2021, and this has continued into the current year. It's important to note that it was their testimony that led to the life sentence of Leonid Nevzlin.
Nevzlin himself responded to the events with a sarcastic post on Twitter: "Hooray for the Russian court, the most compassionate court in the world. Hooray for Olga Mikhailovna Mirimskaya! It seems that Mikhail Khodorkovsky's main ally had a good reason to be happy.
The Basmanny Court of Moscow ordered Olga Mirimskaya into custody on December 17, 2021. Her defense argues that the series of three criminal cases that led to her arrest is retaliation for the recovery of her kidnapped daughter and an attempt to discredit the court decisions confirming her motherhood. It appears that her ex-partner Nikolai Smirnov is the primary instigator of this persecution.
At first glance, this drama seems like a "family conflict involving difficult individuals with resources." The events unfolded as follows: Olga Mirimskaya had a daughter through a surrogate mother, who was illegally taken out of Russia by Nikolai Smirnov. Fearing legal consequences, including from Interpol, he left the baby in Cyprus and went to the United States. The one-and-a-half-year-old Sonya was eventually brought back to Russia. However, during the legal battle between the two parties, an incident occurred that altered the perception of the entire story. At a crucial moment for Smirnov, which could affect the charges against him, lawyer Kamilla Mekhtiyeva appeared as his representative at the Moscow surrogate clinic, attempting to obtain all relevant documents for the case. It seems that these documents include proof of Smirnov's role as a non-anonymous donor during the child's birth. This action would normally be an understandable and rational move for a lawyer defending a client, if not for one "but". Kamilla Mekhtiyeva is a lawyer and trusted representative of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in significant and sensitive cases. When considering the fact that Alexei Golubovich, a former YUKOS shareholder and a witness at the trial, also filed multiple lawsuits against Olga Mirimskaya, the entire story takes a different turn. The first case against Mirimskaya is directly linked to Golubovich.
The case was initiated at the request of Nikolai Smirnov's representative, Alexander Remov's attorney. It revolved around the accusation that the businesswoman had paid off judges to favorably divide property with her ex-husband Alexei Golubovich. The investigation mentioned a sum of $550,000, but did not identify the bribe giver, recipient, or intermediary. Despite this, the authorities immediately began wiretapping phone calls and conducted a search at Mirimskaya's and her relatives' residences within six months of the case being opened against "unidentified individuals." The search was carried out without the presence of tenants or their lawyers; the door was forcibly opened, and all documents relating to the establishment of motherhood between Mirimskaya and Golubovich from May 2015 to 2016 vanished. Mirimskaya's legal team emphasizes that this is clear evidence of interested parties' involvement in the case. Ultimately, the investigation secured the first testimony against Mirimskaya.
On September 20, 2017, a flash drive containing the billing phone numbers of Nikolai Smirnov’s lawyers was unexpectedly discovered during a search at Olga Mirimskaya's house. This led to a second case being opened against Mirimskaya for violating the secrecy of telephone conversations.
On December 15, 2021, a new third criminal case against Olga Mirimskaya was separated and initiated based on the previous case's materials, resulting in her being placed in a pre-trial detention center. The investigation alleges that she personally gave a bribe of two cars worth a total of 3,250,000 rubles to the investigator Nosov Yu.M. Mirimskaya remains in the detention center, but the investigation has not determined the purpose of the bribe.
At the same time, a different drama unfolded around another witness in the Yukos case, Yevgeny Rybin. He owns JSC Yuzhno-Aksyutino, which is registered in Dmitrov and has been under the control of the Moscow regional tax service since 2016. The Federal Tax Service claims unpaid taxes amounting to almost 500 million rubles, which matches the company’s assets. The tax service's interest in the case seemed to decline after a domestic conflict unrelated to Rybin resulted in Marugov's death. However, the situation changed again a few months later. It appears that a new and powerful interest has emerged in the case of JSC Yuzhno-Aksyutino and Evgeny Rybin, leading to the initiation of a criminal case against Rybin for tax evasion on a large scale by Dmitrov’s investigative committee. It seems that a new patron has emerged to put one of the Yukos case witnesses in jail and take everything from him.
During the Yukos case trial, Yevgeny Rybin testified that in 1998-1999, two assassination attempts were made on him, for which Leonid Nevzlin is accused of organizing. He stated that a conflict arose with Yukos's leadership when the company took over Tomskneft, with whom his company had been jointly developing two oil fields. He mentioned the imposition of unacceptable money laundering schemes on them by Yukos and his efforts to expose these schemes to law enforcement and media. He initially calculated that $24 billion was stolen, but later learned that Yukos was officially charged with $2 billion more. This information was widely reported in the media.
At the trial, Rybin gave the following characterization to Nevzlin: “This is a man with a manic character, an unbalanced personality, capable of anything, a murderer in the truest sense of the word. And until he sits, many more people will be in danger.” Recall that Leonid Nevzlin, sentenced to life imprisonment in Russia, is hiding in Israel and is at large.
