http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/107203.html
Nevzlin being tried for murder
02/26/2008
The former president of the Russian Jewish Congress is being put on trial
in
Russia for murder.
Proceedings against former Yukos co-owner Leonid Nevzlin, who now lives in
Israel, are scheduled to begin March 4 in Moscow, according to the Web
site
Jewish.ru.
The Jewish businessman and philanthropist is being charged with the
ordering
of multiple murders committed between 1998 and 2002, including those of
Moscow
businesswoman Valentina Korneyeva and Nefteyugansk Mayor Vladimir
Petukhov.
?Preliminary hearings in the matter will be put forth next Tuesday," said
Anna
Usacheva, head of the press service of the Moscow City Court. "In
accordance
with the law, those preliminary hearings will take place in a closed
courtroom.?
Nevzlin's defenders say the charges are baseless and the trial is
politically
motivated.
Nevzlin, who fled Russia in 2003 as the Kremlin was beginning what many
observers said was the politically motivated prosecution of his Yukos
partner
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is expected to be tried in absentia. In Israel,
Nevzlin
is considered one of the country's wealthiest citizens.
The Russian Jewish Congress refused to comment on the trial.
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