Vasily Aleksanyan

Vasily Georgievich Aleksanyan was a Russian lawyer and a former Executive Vice President of Yukos oil company. He 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. Aleksanyan was arrested and charged as an accomplice to tax evasion and money laundering. After refusing to allegedly provide false evidence against other Yukos executives, he served two years in prison while suffering from advanced cancer and AIDS. After a decision by European Court of Human Rights, he was released on a bond on 12 January 2009, dying from complications of AIDS on 2 October 2011.