Switzerland's supreme court has forbidden the transfer of bank documents to Russia for its investigation into the defunct Yukos oil company, Swiss federal prosecutors said on Thursday.
The Lausanne-based Federal Tribunal said that, despite assurances from Russia, the nation's judicial standards fell short of the international norms required for Switzerland to comply with requests for legal assistance.
The decision is a blow to Moscow's efforts to obtain documents from Switzerland on companies and banks connected to Yukos, which was Russia's largest oil producer before being charged with tax evasion in 2004.
The company is now struggling to stay afloat after being ordered to pay billions of dollars in disputed back tax debts.
The ruling was a victory for Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian prison colony after being convicted on tax evasion and fraud charges. Khodorkovsky brought the case to prevent the documents from being given to Russian prosecutors.
The court said in its legal explanation that, according to human rights observers, the proceedings in Russia were politically motivated, and therefore Switzerland's "cooperation must be refused.''
The 2003 arrest and subsequent trial of Khodorkovsky, a critic of the Kremlin, was widely seen as punishment for his support for Russia's opposition party.
"The political and discriminatory character of the procedure in Russia is underlined by the infringement of human rights and of the right to defense which have apparently been committed throughout the procedure," the court said.
Swiss prosecutors said they are trying to determine whether some US$200 million tied to Yukos can now be released. The money is all that remains from US$5 billion initially frozen in Swiss accounts, the largest amount ever blocked in Switzerland. Most of that money was previously released to account holders.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the