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Ex-Yukos Lawyer Moved, Filing Again for a Pardon

Former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, who is in the last month of her pregnancy, has been transferred to a Moscow region hospital, her lawyer said Monday.

Bakhmina was moved from a hospital run by the Federal Prison Service in the village of Yavas, in the republic of Mordovia, to a similar hospital in the Moscow region, lawyer Roman Golovkin said.

Bakhmina, who has two young sons, is serving a 6 1/2-year term on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion. She applied for a presidential pardon on Oct. 20 but later withdrew her petition for unclear reasons. After serving more than half of her sentence, she was denied parole in September.

Golovkin said Monday that Bakhmina's lawyers had filed another petition for a presidential pardon. "In the current situation ?€¦ we considered the optimal move in defense of Bakhmina would be to file? a petition for her pardon," he said.

As of Monday evening, more than 85,000 people had signed an online petition at the web site Bakhmina.ru calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to pardon the former Yukos lawyer.

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