Moscow prosecutors are investigating reports that a business executive in pre-trial detention has serious health problems, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's Office said on Tuesday.
Marina Gridneva said Moscow prosecutors were probing media reports that former vice president of the Euroset cell phone retailer Boris Levin, who has hepatitis, is in a serious condition and being denied medical assistance.
Former Euroset CEO Yevgeny Chichvarkin sent President Dmitry Medvedev a video address asking him to pay attention to Levin's deteriorating health condition and alleging that medical assistance was being denied as a form of pressure.
A Russian government official, who requested anonymity, told RIA Novosti earlier on Tuesday that Russian law enforcement agencies were currently investigating Chichvarkin's video.
Chichvarkin, who has been residing in Britain for almost a year, is wanted in Russia on suspicion of involvement in the 2003 abduction of Euroset's shipping agent, who allegedly stole large numbers of mobile phones.
In December 2009, London's City of Westminster Magistrates' Court adjourned hearings into Russia's extradition request for Chichvarkin until August 2, 2010.
The report comes not long after the deaths of two business executives in pretrial detention, creating a big stir in Russia and forcing President Medvedev to step in and order a series of official investigations.
Real estate agency owner Vera Trifonova, who was detained last December along with two accomplices on grand fraud charges, died in a Moscow pre-detention center on April 30. She was wheelchair-bound and had been diagnosed with diabetes and kidney disease. Investigators and court officials refused to release her, despite concerns about her ill health.
In November 2009, Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, 37, died of a heart attack in a Moscow pretrial detention center after awaiting trial on tax evasion charges for 358 days.
MOSCOW, May 11 (RIA Novosti)
