Board chairman of Yukos refinery taken into Custody

Rafail Zainullin, chairman of the board of Kuibyshev Oil Refinery, a YUKOS subsidiary, was taken into custody Thursday and ordered held for two months by the October District Court here. Rosbalt learned of the arrest from Aleksandr Shadrin, press secretary of YUKOS. The court acted on the basis of a request from the Main Investigative Branch of the Samara Region Department of Internal Affairs.

Shadrin said Zainullin is accused of failing to pay approximately USD 2.23 million in taxes for 1999, when he was general director of the refinery. The refinery 'has not and does not now owe anything to the authorities, a fact confirmed by inspections conducted by the tax authorities,' Shadrin said. Thus, he said, the arrest is illegal and will be challenged in court. Shadrin called the Samara court action 'the latest step in a campaign of persecution of the owners and managers of YUKOS.

The Kuibyshev Oil Refinery can handle up to 7 million tonnes of raw oil a year.