Swiss Prosecutor Made a Fatal Mistake Regarding YUKOS

Swiss Federal Prosecutor Valentin Roschacher had to resign Wednesday, July 5.

Mr Roschacher passed on to Russia?s authorities the confidential document about accounts of YUKOS company in 2004.

At that time YUKOS's owner MENATEP filed a complaint to Swiss Justice Ministry blaming on the prosecutors the breach of official secret in relation to YUKOS in time of the world legal support to the company.

The public at large leant, for instance, about Roschacher?s letter to Salavat Karimov, major investigator at Russia?s Prosecutor General Office. In that notorious document, Roschacher made clear his office had taken preventive actions and frozen accounts tied to YUKOS and/or its 20 holders. The amount was also mentioned - SFr6.2 billion ($5 billion).

For now the former Swiss Federal Prosecutor Roschacher's role in freezing assets linked to YUKOS was a fatal mistake.

Under the Swiss laws, the federal prosecutor had no right to pass on the confidential information to Russia, as the complaint of YUKOS lawyers had been admitted by the European Court of Human Rights some time before it, Kommersant reported.