Swiss Supreme Court refuses to unfreeze YUKOS bank accounts

The Swiss Supreme Court has refused to unfreeze the personal bank accounts of former YUKOS head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other company shareholders. As reported by PRIME-TASS on the basis of a Dow Jones report, the Swiss Federal Tribunal turned down an appeal by three companies of a decision by the Swiss Procurator's Office to block the accounts. Six other appeals by companies and actual persons are awaiting a decision of the court. The petitioners had insisted that the bank accounts could not be frozen, as the charges brought by the Russian authorities were of a political nature.

As reported earlier, the Swiss Procurator's Office in March blocked the personal bank accounts of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Leonid Nevzlina and others involved in the YUKOS case.

The official spokesperson for the Russian General Procurator's Office, Natalia Vishniakova, earlier announced the Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Nevzlin, Dubov, Temerko and others held more than 6.2 billion Swiss francs in five Swiss banks, which amounts to USD 5 billion. She noted that at issue were not holdings, shares and other securities. 'In this instance, at issue are the personal deposits of actual persons, in one way or another associated with theft - I do not shrink from using that word - to the primitive theft of government assets in especially large amounts,' she said.