Israel Grants Russian Tycoon Citizenship

Excerpts from The Guardian (UK) Wednesday November 5, 2003 , article by RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI (Associate Press writer)

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel has granted citizenship to a Russian tycoon, Leonid Nevzlin, who could be targeted in Russia's tax evasion and fraud investigation of oil giant Yukos, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

Leonid Nevzlin, who is Jewish, was questioned by Russian police in July. He arrived in Israel on a tourist visa two months ago and was granted citizenship on Sunday, the Interior Ministry said.

Nevzlin is the top aide of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, (who is also Jewish) , and who resigned earlier this week as head of Yukos, the world's fifth-largest oil company.

Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man, has been in a Russian prison since Oct. 25 on charges of tax evasion and fraud.

Russian media have reported that Khodorkovsky assigned to Nevzlin "beneficiary rights'' to 50 percent of shares in Yukos holding company, Group Menatep.

That would make Nevzlin a key figure in protecting the company's multibillion-dollar assets from the authorities who might try to seize them.

Leonid Nevzlin ... has an estimated wealth at $1.1 billion. Forbes ranks him as the 11th richest Russian.

Nevzlin was formerly head of the Russian Jewish Congress - the group once headed by Vladimir Gusinsky, another oligarch who is currently hiding in Israel.

According to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, another Yukos shareholder, Vladmir Dubov, was in Israel until recently and stayed in the same Tel Aviv hotel as Nevzlin

..... Read HERE on arrest of Vladmir Dubov and Boris Berezovsky by British authorities in March 2003. Both are Jewish Russian oligarchs on the run after Russian authorities accused them of defrauding a regional government of the equivalent of $13 million.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon brought up his concern about recent arrests of Jewish businessmen in Russia during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday. "He said that as a Jew and as prime minister he is worried that there is persecution'' of Jews, said Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin.

Putin assured Sharon that the cases were purely criminal.

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