10 Facts About Vasily Aleksanyan

Vasily Georgievich Aleksanyan was a Russian lawyer and a former Executive Vice President of Yukos oil company.

Vasily Aleksanyan headed the company's legal department and represented Mikhail Khodorkovsky when the Kremlin accused the oil tycoon and his managers of money laundering and embezzlement in 2006.

Vasily Aleksanyan graduated from Moscow State University and the Law School of Harvard University as a Master of Laws.

Vasily Aleksanyan's main stated goal in the new role was to streamline the corporate governance, achieving direct control over the assets of the company from the London Yukos headquarters bypassing the Moscow based offices of Yukos RM and Yukos EP.

On 6 April 2006 Vasily Aleksanyan was taken into custody as a suspected accomplice to tax evasion and money laundering by Yukos.

The arrest was based on the testimonies of Svetlana Bakhmina, a subordinate of Vasily Aleksanyan arrested in 2004.

Vasily Aleksanyan became almost blind and developed cancer of the liver with metastasis into the lymph nodes.

Eleven days into a hunger strike in his favour by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vasily Aleksanyan was transferred from a pre-trial prison to an oncological hospital on 8 February 2008.

Vasily Aleksanyan was to be released after the money was paid.

Vasily Aleksanyan died at his home in Moscow on 2 October 2011, due to complications from AIDS.