Kudrin Subpoened to Testify in Khodorkovsky Case

Russia’s Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin just got served during a visit to Washington D.C. with a Federal Court subpoena to testify in the trial against Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Russia.  This story was broke by Reuters:

“On April 24, an unidentified person handed over some papers to Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. Kudrin had no understanding about the content of the papers and immediately handed them over to one of his aides,” Kuznetsov said in the statement, which was written in Russian.

“As was established later, the papers were a notification, issued by the District of Columbia Federal Court, to testify in the criminal case against (ex-YUKOS CEO) Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which is being heard in a Russian court.”

Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio station reported earlier that thesubpoena was related to a lawsuit by YUKOS minority shareholdersagainst the Russian Federation.

Kuznetsov’s statement said the subpoena had been prepared byKhodorkovsky’s lawyers but did not say whether it was related to ashareholder lawsuit. (…)

Television footage from international Russian-language channel RTVishowed a man in suit and sunglasses, identified by the reporter ascourt marshal David Felter, handing over a folded paper to Kudrinoutside a Washington thinktank.

In the footage, Kudrin accepted the paper. Kudrin, who is takingpart in the International Monetary Fund’s spring meeting in Washington,was not available for comments on Friday or Saturday.