Israel Indicts Avigdor Eskin With Illegal Spying on Michael Cherney, Alleging Crime By Oleg Deripaska


By Herb Brandon
Israel News Agency

Tel Aviv, Israel ---- January 7, 2011 ...... The Israel Attorney General's office has submitted an indictment of Avigdor Eskin, a political activist, to a Jerusalem court. The indictment relates to the case of illegal collection of information about Israel businessman and philanthropist Michael Cherney.

Eskin is the fourth defendant in this wire tapping case, which focuses on illegal spying on Michael Cherney (Michal Chernoy). As reported by the IzRus News Website, in the last few months the Israel Attorney General's office negotiated with Eskin about bringing up lesser chargers of dropping them altogether in exchange for his confession that the illegal wiretapping of Cherney was ordered by Russia billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

One year ago, a Tel Aviv, Israel court found the former private investigator guilty in the same case and sentenced him to 14 months of prison and damages amounting to 20,000 shekels. In September 2010 charges were also brought against former private investigators Rafael Pridan and Maksim Gurevich.

According to the bill of indictment submitted to the Jerusalem, Israel court this month, one of the charges against Eskin is that in April 2007 was contacted by Alexei Drobaschenko whose objective was to inflict damage on businessman Michael Cherney. At that time Drobaschenko was serving as the head of external relations for Basic Element, the financial and industrial group that manages Oleg Deripaska's assets. The indictment details that at a meeting in Moscow, Drobaschenko explained to Eskin and Pridan that "people he represented are in conflict with businessman Michael Cherney and wanted to gather information on him".

This Jerusalem criminal case is directly related to a lawsuit taking place in London. In November 2006 Michael Cherney filed a law suit against Oleg Deripaska, his former business partner. In this case Cherney demands that he be recognized as the owner of 20 per cent of the stock in UC Rusal (the second largest aluminum producer in the world), or else that he be compensated the full value of the package.

The total of the claim by Michael Cherney, including various interest and charges by June 2010, exceeds $4 billion USD.

The High Court in London has ruled against all of Deripaska legal motions that challenged British jurisdiction for the case and the court will hear the case on its merit in April 2012.

In April 2009 Israel publication Haaretz noted that this London, England suit was the cause of Deripaska and his advisers undertaking large scale attempts to discredit Cherney in Europe and Israel. In addition to attempting to damage Cherney's reputation, they allegedly expected that a European country would place him on the international Wanted list in order to prevent him appearing in court in London.

On February 14, 2008, Cherney filed a suit in a Tel Aviv court against nine people, including Oleg Deripaska, Alexei Drobashenko, Avigdor Eskin, Rafael Pridan and Aviv Mor, asking for 10 million shekels in damages. Cherney claimed that Deripaska had launched an international campaign , including one in Israel, to discredit him. This included "slanderous publications in electronic and print media, street graffiti, and attempts to influence authorities by illegal means".

On May 13, 2010 the Swiss Court awarded Michael Cherney a compensation of 30,000 Swiss francs for unfounded suspicions of his links to the "Russian Mafia". The Swiss court ruled that Michael Cherney be financially compensated for moral damages to him and his family caused by the investigation which dragged from 1996 till 2007. After the Swiss court's 2008 ruling that Cherney was not linked to organized crime, he decided to sue for moral damages.

Experts expect that the next indictment will be against Alexei Drobashenko, the former head of external relations for Basic Element (BasEl), and that this will directly implicate Oleg Deripaska, the owner of BasEl, in this criminal case.

Michael Cherney spends much of his time as a philanthropist - serving as the director of the Michael Cherney Foundation.

The Michael Cherney Charity Foundation was created on June 1, 2001, on the night of the Islamic terror bombing at the Dolphinarium Disco in Tel Aviv. When Michael Cherney learned the number of victims - twenty one dead and over 150 wounded, he realized that rendering assistance required a systematic organized effort. This was the genesis of the Foundation.

Prior to 2001, Cherney was engaged in charity work in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Bulgaria, the US - wherever he did business. He made especially valuable contribution into Jewish philanthropy in Russia.

The Cherney Fund renders help mostly to the new arrivals, victims of catastrophes and terrorist acts that continue to attack Israel, as well as to the low-income victims of terror in other countries.

Another equally important task assumed by the Cherney Foundation is the media effort in war on terror. Shortly after the Dolphinarium attack, the Foundation published a book called Dolphinarium: Terror Targets the Young. The book is an oral history, a representation of the voices of the parents who lost their children and the teenager victims themselves. It was published in three languages and met with acclaim in Israel, the United States, and Russia.

The Fund's contribution into conveying the truth about the war of terror against the Jewish people has met with high appreciation from the media, public organizations, and the Israeli government.

The Fund also actively participates in various children and youth-oriented programs, in human rights, public relations for Israel, projects that counter anti-semitism and various athletic programs. Last year, Michael Cherney contributed logistical support to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Israel Flying Aid when they established an emergency search and rescue unit and medical field hospital in Haiti following a devastating earthquake.

Michael Cherney is also the director of The Jerusalem Summit, an Israel based advocacy organization that brings together Evangelicals, neoconservatives, and pro Israel leaders from across the globe in an effort to shape the debate over the status of Palestine, radical Islam, Islamic Apartheid and what its members view as the "relativism" of the West.

 

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