TNK Rival Claims CIA Spied on Kukes

The CIA spied on Simon Kukes, the newly appointed head of Yukos and former head of TNK, according to an official at Canada's Norex Petroleum.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency started keeping tabs on Kukes during his time as president of TNK and concluded that he was bribing Russian officials, Norex head Phil Murray said.

Norex is engaged in a long-standing dispute with TNK over its Russian oil assets.

Murray said that his company's lawyers, the Marks and Sokolov law firm, sent an official request to U.S. authorities for compromising material on TNK. In early September the CIA replied with information on a number of alleged violations of Russian law during the bankruptcy of key subsidiary Chernogorneft, Murray said.

The CIA press office confirmed it sent a reply to the request by Marks and Sokolov but refused to elaborate.

Norex has shown Vedomosti a document that it claims is a copy of the CIA's reply. According to the letter's first paragraph, "TNK president Kukes said he had been bribing local officials." The letter does not specify to whom Kukes was talking and under what circumstances.

Murray said the CIA has declined to disclose the source of this information. He suggested that it could have been gathered in 1999, when TNK was wrangling with its current co-owner, BP, over the bankruptcy of Chernogorneft.

At the time, BP appealed for assistance from Washington. Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright demanded that U.S.-funded Export Import Bank refuse a $500 million credit to TNK. The letter sent to Norex is a shortened version of a document that was originally prepared by the CIA for ExImBank.

TNK and BP have since created a joint oil holding in Russia.

Kukes refused to speak with Vedomosti but said in a statement that the CIA letter came as a "surprise."

"I've never had the honor to deal with this organization, neither when I lived in Russia, nor when I moved to the U.S.A. I have never bribed any officials and have never discussed it with anyone. And the CIA statement looks incorrect from a legal standpoint, even from the point of view of someone who is not a lawyer," Kukes said in the statement.

Sergei Sokolov, a partner at Marks and Sokolov, told Vedomosti that the CIA letter was submitted to a New York court to prove the racketeering charge brought by Norex Petroleum against TNK. Company lawyers have also shared this information with former State Duma Deputy Vladimir Yudin, who passed it on to the General Prosecutor's Office, Sokolov said.

The long-standing conflict between TNK and Norex has at its root the Yugraneft corporation, created in 1992 by the Canadian company, with a 60 percent share and Chernogorneft holding 40 percent.

When Chernogorneft went bankrupt, TNK took over control of the company in 2000 and later appointed its own general director of Yugraneft.

After a Russian court declared Norex's contribution to the company's charter capital invalid, the Canadians in 2002 turned to a New York court, where they sued TNK and its shareholders -- Access Industries, Renova and Alfa Group, among others.

Kukes, his former first vice president Iosif Bakaleynik, head of Renova Viktor Vekselberg and owner of Access Leonard Blavatnik are facing charges of forcibly retaining Yurganeft assets; forgery; physical threats; blackmail; tax evasion; and money laundering.