State-controlled NTV television turned up the pressure on jailed Yukos billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Sunday evening by running a documentary that speculated businesses connected to the oil magnate may have been involved in financing Chechen terrorists.
Coming just over three weeks since the horror of the Beslan hostage crisis, in which more than 330 people died and for which Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has declared responsibility, the allegations aired on prime-time national television appear to mark a significant step up in the state's campaign against Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky, listed by Forbes magazine's Russian edition as Russia's richest man, is in jail on charges of massive fraud and tax evasion in a legal onslaught widely seen as retribution for his attempts to eclipse President Vladimir Putin's power base.
His oil company, meanwhile, looks likely to be soon swallowed up by an energy company close to the state. In a pre-emptive statement issued Friday, Khodorkovsky called the allegations "slanderous," while his lawyer Anton Drel said the NTV program was a Kremlin "provocation."
The documentary, titled "Prepaid Terrorist Act," which was widely promoted ahead of the broadcast, made no direct link between Khodorkovsky and Beslan. But it began with commentary on payments of tens of thousands of dollars to perpetrators of recent terrorist attacks, including to the relatives of suicide bombers at the Tushino music festival in July 2003, and a suggestive question about where the money for the Beslan attack came from.
In what looked like a clear effort to trace ties between Chechen rebel groups and Khodorkovsky-connected businesses, the 30-minute program noted that even though most financing for Chechen terrorists was now believed to come from abroad, funding for the separatists was clearly rooted in "Russian origins" and big business.
Turning the clock back almost 10 years, NTV alleged that Yukos officials in 1995 linked up with Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, an alleged Chechen rebel financier, to divert tens of millions of dollars worth of Yukos oil sales proceeds to Chechen rebels. The program suggested a spate of later killings of local officials in regions where Yukos was active, including the 1998 slaying of Nefteyugansk Mayor Vladimir Petukhov, may have been linked to Chechen financing scams, but did not specify how.
The program went on to suggest that the as-yet-unsolved contract killing of American journalist Paul Klebnikov, who was gunned down outside his office in July, could have been connected to further investigations into links between Nukhayev and big business in Moscow, including with oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky's LogoVAZ empire.
Klebnikov gained a reputation for hard-hitting journalism with the publication of his book profiling Berezovsky's rise to power, "The Godfather of the Kremlin." A second, Russian-language book, "Interview With a Barbarian," was based on 20 hours of interviews with Nukhayev and alleged that Berezovsky's LogoVAZ was funneling oil money for the Chechen separatist cause.
In his statement Friday, Khodorkovsky called media speculation that he was somehow connected to Chechen bandits "slanderous" and said ties between Chechens and Yukos had only existed before he gained ownership of the oil firm in late 1995.
"Even in the middle of court proceedings, I cannot help but react to slander directed against me and an attempt to find a scapegoat for the problem of banditry in the country," Khodorkovsky said in a statement posted Friday on his web site khodorkovsky.ru.
"I came to Yukos after its privatization in 1995-96. Over the course of a year, we managed to rid the former state company of bandits, including Chechen. To do that we simply had to bring order [to the company]. As long as there is order in the company it will be free from crime," the statement said.
The first publication to raise speculation about Yukos' ties to Chechen rebels was Moskovsky Komsomolets. An article in the newspaper by Mark Deich, published just over a week after the Beslan hostage siege, detailed ties between a Nukhayev-linked oil trading firm, Rondo-S, and Yukos.
The NTV program also aired an interview with Deich in which he disclosed details of a criminal investigation launched by local prosecutors in Nefteyugansk in 1997 into the disappearance of 1.2 trillion rubles (pre-1998 crash) worth of oil exports.
The program said shortly after the investigation was launched, the deputy governor of the Tyumen region, Sergei Martynushkin, was found dead in his office.
In his MK article, Deich alleged that Martynushkin was among a number of officials who had aided the head of Rondo-S, a Mr. Sharakin, in gaining the export contract.
The program listed other mysterious deaths surrounding the investigation, including the death of Petukhov, the Nefteyugansk mayor, and cited former Yukos official Olga Kostina as saying she believed that Petukhov had gotten on the wrong side of Yukos' new owners.
Khodorkovsky's partner Leonid Nevzlin, who is in Israel, has been charged in absentia with organizing the attempted murder of Kostina, together with Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin. Nevzlin and Pichugin deny the charges.
Khodorkovsky's lawyer Drel said by telephone Friday that the media speculation was part of a Kremlin campaign to smear the oil magnate. He reiterated Khodorkovsky's claims that any ties with Nukhayev had occurred only while Yukos was still owned by the state in 1995, and said that Khodorkovsky had worked hard to clean up the company.
He warned, however, that Khodorkovsky's jailing could lead to a breakdown in discipline within the company again and the growth of corrupt ties. "Now that the company is in a bad state, there could be all kinds of similar problems in the regions," he said. "We simply don't know."
NTV, however, cited a local oil baron, Yevgeny Rybin, as countering Khodorkovsky's claims that problems with Nukhayev only existed before Yukos was privatized by alleging that Yukos continued to trade oil via Rondo-S even after Khodorkovsky's Group Menatep had gained control of the oil company.
As a former minority owner of Yukos subsidiary Eastern Oil Company VNK, Rybin has crossed swords with Menatep several times.
After he publicly alleged that Yukos was siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in company profits in transfer-pricing schemes, two unsuccessful attempts were made on his life in 1998 and 1999.
Rybin claims Yukos ordered the hits, and Nevzlin and Pichugin have been charged with attempting to organize his murder, a charge they also deny. The NTV program also reiterated these charges.
Seeking to further solidify allegations linking Menatep with the financing of Chechen warlords, NTV also aired a copy of an aviso note that, according to investigations, had been used in a widespread scam in the early 1990s to steal funds from the Central Bank and send them to Chechnya. It said the note showed 50 million rubles went through a LogoVAZ account at Bank Menatep.
The program did not manage to dig up any allegations from the more recent past.
"The authorities understand very well that the official reasons for the attack on Khodorkovsky -- nonpayment of taxes -- are not compelling enough for society, so they are broadening the version of why he is in prison," said independent political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky. "But if this is true, why don't they open a criminal investigation? These are very powerful accusations."
Reached by telephone Sunday, Berezovsky also challenged the state to press any case it believed it had against him in the courts. "If they consider I am guilty of something, they should produce the documents," he said from London, where he has been granted political asylum. "They should take their case to the English courts and not produce artistic films."
Berezovsky has long been believed to be in close contact with Chechen rebels. He did not deny contacts with Basayev, but said he had only met with him when he was deputy head of the Security Council and Basayev was acting Chechen prime minister in the late 1990s.
Berezovsky denied he had ever had any commercial ties to Khodorkovsky.
"Khodorkovsky and I have only one mutual interest and that is the destruction of the Putin regime," he said. "I believe Khodorkovsky is beginning to understand this now."
Coming just over three weeks since the horror of the Beslan hostage crisis, in which more than 330 people died and for which Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has declared responsibility, the allegations aired on prime-time national television appear to mark a significant step up in the state's campaign against Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky, listed by Forbes magazine's Russian edition as Russia's richest man, is in jail on charges of massive fraud and tax evasion in a legal onslaught widely seen as retribution for his attempts to eclipse President Vladimir Putin's power base.
His oil company, meanwhile, looks likely to be soon swallowed up by an energy company close to the state. In a pre-emptive statement issued Friday, Khodorkovsky called the allegations "slanderous," while his lawyer Anton Drel said the NTV program was a Kremlin "provocation."
The documentary, titled "Prepaid Terrorist Act," which was widely promoted ahead of the broadcast, made no direct link between Khodorkovsky and Beslan. But it began with commentary on payments of tens of thousands of dollars to perpetrators of recent terrorist attacks, including to the relatives of suicide bombers at the Tushino music festival in July 2003, and a suggestive question about where the money for the Beslan attack came from.
In what looked like a clear effort to trace ties between Chechen rebel groups and Khodorkovsky-connected businesses, the 30-minute program noted that even though most financing for Chechen terrorists was now believed to come from abroad, funding for the separatists was clearly rooted in "Russian origins" and big business.
Turning the clock back almost 10 years, NTV alleged that Yukos officials in 1995 linked up with Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, an alleged Chechen rebel financier, to divert tens of millions of dollars worth of Yukos oil sales proceeds to Chechen rebels. The program suggested a spate of later killings of local officials in regions where Yukos was active, including the 1998 slaying of Nefteyugansk Mayor Vladimir Petukhov, may have been linked to Chechen financing scams, but did not specify how.
The program went on to suggest that the as-yet-unsolved contract killing of American journalist Paul Klebnikov, who was gunned down outside his office in July, could have been connected to further investigations into links between Nukhayev and big business in Moscow, including with oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky's LogoVAZ empire.
Klebnikov gained a reputation for hard-hitting journalism with the publication of his book profiling Berezovsky's rise to power, "The Godfather of the Kremlin." A second, Russian-language book, "Interview With a Barbarian," was based on 20 hours of interviews with Nukhayev and alleged that Berezovsky's LogoVAZ was funneling oil money for the Chechen separatist cause.
In his statement Friday, Khodorkovsky called media speculation that he was somehow connected to Chechen bandits "slanderous" and said ties between Chechens and Yukos had only existed before he gained ownership of the oil firm in late 1995.
"Even in the middle of court proceedings, I cannot help but react to slander directed against me and an attempt to find a scapegoat for the problem of banditry in the country," Khodorkovsky said in a statement posted Friday on his web site khodorkovsky.ru.
"I came to Yukos after its privatization in 1995-96. Over the course of a year, we managed to rid the former state company of bandits, including Chechen. To do that we simply had to bring order [to the company]. As long as there is order in the company it will be free from crime," the statement said.
The first publication to raise speculation about Yukos' ties to Chechen rebels was Moskovsky Komsomolets. An article in the newspaper by Mark Deich, published just over a week after the Beslan hostage siege, detailed ties between a Nukhayev-linked oil trading firm, Rondo-S, and Yukos.
The NTV program also aired an interview with Deich in which he disclosed details of a criminal investigation launched by local prosecutors in Nefteyugansk in 1997 into the disappearance of 1.2 trillion rubles (pre-1998 crash) worth of oil exports.
The program said shortly after the investigation was launched, the deputy governor of the Tyumen region, Sergei Martynushkin, was found dead in his office.
In his MK article, Deich alleged that Martynushkin was among a number of officials who had aided the head of Rondo-S, a Mr. Sharakin, in gaining the export contract.
The program listed other mysterious deaths surrounding the investigation, including the death of Petukhov, the Nefteyugansk mayor, and cited former Yukos official Olga Kostina as saying she believed that Petukhov had gotten on the wrong side of Yukos' new owners.
Khodorkovsky's partner Leonid Nevzlin, who is in Israel, has been charged in absentia with organizing the attempted murder of Kostina, together with Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin. Nevzlin and Pichugin deny the charges.
Khodorkovsky's lawyer Drel said by telephone Friday that the media speculation was part of a Kremlin campaign to smear the oil magnate. He reiterated Khodorkovsky's claims that any ties with Nukhayev had occurred only while Yukos was still owned by the state in 1995, and said that Khodorkovsky had worked hard to clean up the company.
He warned, however, that Khodorkovsky's jailing could lead to a breakdown in discipline within the company again and the growth of corrupt ties. "Now that the company is in a bad state, there could be all kinds of similar problems in the regions," he said. "We simply don't know."
NTV, however, cited a local oil baron, Yevgeny Rybin, as countering Khodorkovsky's claims that problems with Nukhayev only existed before Yukos was privatized by alleging that Yukos continued to trade oil via Rondo-S even after Khodorkovsky's Group Menatep had gained control of the oil company.
As a former minority owner of Yukos subsidiary Eastern Oil Company VNK, Rybin has crossed swords with Menatep several times.
After he publicly alleged that Yukos was siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in company profits in transfer-pricing schemes, two unsuccessful attempts were made on his life in 1998 and 1999.
Rybin claims Yukos ordered the hits, and Nevzlin and Pichugin have been charged with attempting to organize his murder, a charge they also deny. The NTV program also reiterated these charges.
Seeking to further solidify allegations linking Menatep with the financing of Chechen warlords, NTV also aired a copy of an aviso note that, according to investigations, had been used in a widespread scam in the early 1990s to steal funds from the Central Bank and send them to Chechnya. It said the note showed 50 million rubles went through a LogoVAZ account at Bank Menatep.
The program did not manage to dig up any allegations from the more recent past.
"The authorities understand very well that the official reasons for the attack on Khodorkovsky -- nonpayment of taxes -- are not compelling enough for society, so they are broadening the version of why he is in prison," said independent political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky. "But if this is true, why don't they open a criminal investigation? These are very powerful accusations."
Reached by telephone Sunday, Berezovsky also challenged the state to press any case it believed it had against him in the courts. "If they consider I am guilty of something, they should produce the documents," he said from London, where he has been granted political asylum. "They should take their case to the English courts and not produce artistic films."
Berezovsky has long been believed to be in close contact with Chechen rebels. He did not deny contacts with Basayev, but said he had only met with him when he was deputy head of the Security Council and Basayev was acting Chechen prime minister in the late 1990s.
Berezovsky denied he had ever had any commercial ties to Khodorkovsky.
"Khodorkovsky and I have only one mutual interest and that is the destruction of the Putin regime," he said. "I believe Khodorkovsky is beginning to understand this now."