Svetlana Bakhmina, who is charged in connection with a 6-year-old case involving alleged asset-stripping at a Yukos subsidiary, began a hunger strike March 3 to protest after investigators refused to give her permission to speak to her two sons, ages 7 and 3. She was taken in for questioning in early December and charged soon after.

 

Bakhmina's lawyer Olga Kozyreva said that her client had still not received permission to speak with her children and came off the hunger strike on Saturday after suffering from kidney problems.

The case against Bakhmina is part of a web of ongoing investigations by authorities into the remains of the Yukos oil empire. In December, the company's biggest oil unit was auctioned off against Yukos' disputed $28 billion back tax claims, a climax of what market watchers have called a politically charged campaign steered from the Kremlin to neutralize the political ambitions of the company's jailed founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky

 

International lawyers' organizations, including the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Union, have written to President Vladimir Putin and Russia's Prosecutor General's office demanding that Bakhmina be released from prison on house arrest.

 

Please send an urgent appeal for Svetlana Bakhmina, held in custody since 7 December 2004. Mrs Bakhmina began a hunger strike on 3 March to protest against the detention centre authorities' refusal to allow her to telephone her young children with whom she has had no contact since her arrest. There are concerns that this may lead to further deterioration in her health.

 

Jailed Yukos Lawyer Continues Hunger Strike

Updated: Friday, Mar. 11, 2005 - 2:50 PM <