MOSCOW, April 7 (RIA Novosti) - An executive vice president of the embattled Yukos company said Friday he was going on hunger strike after a Moscow court remanded him in custody.
Vasily Aleksanyan said, "From today I am on hunger strike, and will only drink water until my release."
Aleksanyan was arrested Thursday after a Moscow court ruled that prosecutors could charge him with embezzlement and money laundering, his defense lawyer, Gevorg Davgyan, said.
Aleksanyan denied any wrongdoing ahead of a ruling Thursday morning that he could be detained, and said he had always turned up for questioning in the past two years. Under Russian law, a court had to rule that prosecutors could detain him because he is a lawyer.
"As you can see, I am staying in Russia, am not trying to flee the country, and I do not believe I am guilty of anything," said Aleksanyan, who as head of the Yukos legal department acted for ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and former Yukos-Moscow president Vasily Shakhnovsky at their trials.
The official, whose apartment and country house were searched Wednesday by the investigators, did not appear in court Thursday morning.
Aleksanyan said he suffered from problems with blood vessels in his brain and should not be in custody.
"The search at my place revealed documents that prove that I have metals in my blood," he said.
But prosecutor Valery Lakhtin said Aleksanyan's health was good enough for him to be remanded in custody.
Prosecutors accuse Aleksanyan of embezzling $460 million from Yukos production unit Tomskneft, and the funds of some other oil companies, and of laundering another $460.8 million through his personal account in a Swiss bank.
"Aleksanyan is a well-educated man, and has long been a member of an organized group, and did not commit such felonies by accident," Lakhtin said, adding that Aleksanyan, if found guilty, would face 10-15 years in jail.
Aleksanyan said earlier that the decision to charge him could be linked to his appointment as Yukos executive president, a move the Yukos board endorsed Tuesday.
The board said Aleksanyan would be entrusted with representing the interests of stakeholders, including creditors and shareholders, and ensuring that the company's assets were protected.
Prosecutors said Aleksanyan's associates in the crime - Leonid Nevzlin, Yukos core shareholder, currently living in Israel, and Dmitry Gololobov, head of Yukos-Moscow legal department - had fled and were on the international wanted list. Lakhtin said Aleksanyan could agree his testimony with Nevzlin and Gololobov, and therefore had to be kept in custody.
The prosecutor also said a floppy-disk had been found in Gololobov's office. The disk contained instructions about how to behave during an arrest, how to influence witnesses and an investigation, attract the interest of the press and escape liability.
Aleksanyan said the prosecutors' evidence for remanding him custody was far from convincing.
"None of the documents illustrated that I had committed a crime and all the accusations were absolutely unsubstantiated," he said.
"That I did not come to ... court where the charges against me were considered does not mean anything," Aleksanyan said.
"I think that my custody is an unfounded tough measure for me and my four-year-old child, who I bring up on my own," he said and asked the court to grant him bail.
However, the court ruled to remand him in custody, and his lawyer Davgyan said he would appeal the decision.
