Public prosecutor Dmitri Shokhin offered evidence on Murmansk-based Apatite fertiliser company partnership with its industrial branches.
Witness Elena Tyapkova, Murmansk resident, has been working as accountant for the Apatite since 1991. As she said in court, she was working on the side, for Varyag Co., for three or four months-she is not sure now, in 2000. "I was making Xerox copies of freight waybills for them," she says. The witness had not the slightest idea of where the company based as she was working for it on the Apatite premises, and received her salary from the Menatep bank, owned by defendant Lebedev.
As the prosecution has it, Khodorkovsky-former proprietor of the Yukos petroleum mammoth-and other persons, whom investigators failed to identify, established several men-of-straw subordinate to him as go-betweens, the Varyag among them. The Apatite was selling raw fertiliser to those companies for token prices to be exported to the West as apatite concentrate at exorbitant prices.
Another witness questioned today, Konstantin Graudin, is head expert of Russian Investors Co. He appeared on the race for the Apatite stock on Malachite Co.'s behalf.
When Apatite privatisation was underway, Graudin was working for the expert board of the Menatep bank investment department. "The Apatite came up with an investment programme of its own. I thoroughly analysed that programme before the contest opened for a 20% block of Apatite shares. The bids were huge, and the block was worth it," said the witness.
The Malachite warranted him to apply for the contest, and collect and offer necessary papers. Graudin revoked his application after the contest on accord with one Logachev of the Menatep bank.
The prosecution regards the Malachite among the men-of-straw Khodorkovsky allegedly set up to seize the 20% Apatite block through fraud.
A medical certificate concerning Platon Lebedev, of August 12, was filed during today's hearings. As it alleges, ailing Lebedev's health is good enough for him to attend the hearings.
"The certificate misrepresents doctors' opinions," said Elena Lipzer, one of Lebedev's lawyers.
The court has for now questioned a mere eight witnesses for the prosecution out of a breathtaking total 150. Their questioning will take up the whole September, expects eminent Heinrich Padva, prominent among Mikhail Khodorkovsky's counsels for the defence.
Billionaires Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are suspected of fraud and tax evasion-both to huge sums. Their indictment involves seven Criminal Code clauses.
The court will resume hearings Monday, August 30.
