The former owner of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky appealed to the district court of Dublin, petition for unfreezing of €100 million, which were blocked in 2011 at the request of the Irish financial police. These funds were frozen in connection with the verdict of the Khamovnichesky court in 2010, when the court has appointed to Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev additional prison terms for the theft of oil and laundering of the proceeds from its sale, to the press release on the website of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and materials The Irish Times, which monitors this process. Hearings in the court of Dublin began on 21 November and will last for several days.
More than €100 million, which is stored in the two funds located in Ireland, according to the website of Khodorkovsky. These funds belonged to the trust on the island of Guernsey, the beneficiary of which is Khodorkovsky, writes The Irish Times, citing a statement by his lawyer Remy Farrell in court. The money was frozen by the court at the request of the Irish Bureau of investigation of economic crimes according to the Law on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism. According to Irish law, the financial police through the court to freeze funds under the anti-money laundering investigations at 28 days, repeating this procedure any number of times that the police and making for the past five and a half years.
“I can’t say I won’t be able to live without this money, but I do a significant social and civic work, spend a lot of money and, of course, would be able to find a use for this money,” Khodorkovsky explained to the correspondent The Irish Times his desire to return €100 million.
According to Farrell, these funds come from the Yukos dividends and transactions to repurchase shares of the company’s shareholders, which date from 2002 and 2003. Irish financial intelligence agencies suspect that the money can be linked to criminal schemes, referred to in the judgment of the Russian court. The investigation in Ireland is continuing, and Khodorkovsky — is a potential suspect, but the decision needs to take the chief Prosecutor of Ireland, writes The Irish Times, citing Michael McDowell, representing the court of the Irish police.
The financial police of Ireland — “the only government Agency in the free world, which, apparently, considers lawful the decision of the Russian courts in the Yukos case,” he said in court Khodorkovsky defender. But, according to McDowell, Russia and Ireland are bound by a number of international agreements — the Irish authorities are unable to consider the Russian sentence meaningless. The law on combating money laundering imposes on Khodorkovsky the burden of proof that the frozen funds were not related to criminal schemes, says McDowell.
In 2016, Khodorkovsky, who now lives in London and is the public-political movement “Open Russia”, returned to the list of 200 richest businessmen of Russia according to Forbes magazine. The magazine has estimated his fortune at $500 million In 2005, while in prison, Khodorkovsky has donated his longtime business partner Leonid Nevzlin shares of the trusts in Guernsey, thereby ceasing to claim any assets remaining after Yukos. Trust, whose funds are frozen in Ireland, was never the beneficiary of Yukos, said the representative of Khodorkovsky.
