Ex-Yukos manager's trial halted

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A Moscow court has suspended the trial of a seriously ill former top executive of Russia's disbanded oil giant Yukos.

But the court refused to allow Vasily Aleksanyan undergo urgent hospital treatment for Aids and cancer, ruling that he could be treated in prison.

The 36-year-old former vice president of Yukos is charged with embezzlement. He rejects the charges.

Mr Aleksanyan has been in detention since 2006. The case is being closely watched by human rights activists.

The jailed Yukos founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is on hunger strike in support of his deputy.

Mr Khodorkovsky is serving eight years in a Siberian prison after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion. He says officials are punishing Mr Aleksanyan for refusing to sign false confessions.

European court ruling

On Tuesday, prosecutors in Moscow charged Mr Aleksanyan with embezzlement and money laundering dating back to the late 1990s.

Mr Khodorkovsky says his case is politically motivated

His lawyers say he has developed serious health complications and is nearly blind.

The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly appealed for Mr Aleksanyan to be treated in hospital.

But last Friday the Moscow court rejected Mr Aleksanyan's demand to be transferred to a clinic as groundless.

Russia's human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin has called for an independent medical examination of Mr Aleksanyan.

'Impossible choice'

In a letter posted on his supporters' website last week, Mr Khodorkovsky said Mr Aleksanyan had been refused medication and deliberately placed in poor conditions.

Mr Khodorkovsky, who was once Russia's richest man, said he had no choice but to "abandon the legal framework" and start a hunger strike.

"I am facing an impossible moral choice: admit to crimes I haven't committed and save the life of a man, but destroy the fate of innocents who will be charged as my accomplices," he said.

Mr Khodorkovsky's supporters have always said that his arrest was punishment for his support of pro-Western opposition political parties.

Yukos saga

Yukos, once Russia's biggest oil company, was declared bankrupt in 2006 and ceased to exist as a legal entity in November 2007.

The company had been steadily dismantled after being accused of massive fraud and tax evasion by the Russian authorities.

Yukos maintained it was the victim of a concerted political campaign by a government which wanted to discredit its executives and gain control of vital energy assets.

Russian officials deny the allegation.