Attorney General Indicts Avigdor Eskin With Illegal Spying on Michael Cherney, Alleging the Crime was Commissioned by Deripaska's Advisers

LONDON, January 6, 2011 - On 3 January 2011 an indictment of Avigdor Eskin, a political
activist, was submitted by the Attorney General's office to a Jerusalem
court. The indictment relates to the case of illegal collection of
information about Israeli businessman Michael Cherney.

Mr Eskin is the fourth defendant in this case, which focuses
on illegal spying on Mr Cherney. As reported by the IzRus news website, in
the last few months the Attorney General's office negotiated with Mr Eskin
about bringing up lesser chargers of dropping them altogether in exchange for
his confession that the illegal wiretapping of Mr Cherney was ordered by
Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

Exactly one year ago, a Tel Aviv 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
court this month, one of the charges against Mr Eskin is that in April 2007
was contacted by Alexei Drobaschenko whose objective was to inflict damage on
businessman Michael Cherney. At that time Mr 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, Mr Drobaschenko explained to Mr Eskin and Mr Pridan that
"people he represented are in conflict with businessman Michael Cherney and
wanted to gather information on him".

Background to this Jerusalem case includes a lawsuit taking
place in London. In November 2006 Michael Cherney filed a suit against Oleg
Deripaska, his former business partner. In this case Mr Cherney demands that
he be recognised as the owner of 20 per cent of the stock in UC Rusal (the
second largest aluminium producer in the world), or else that he be
compensated the full value of the package. The total of the claim, including
various interest and charges by June 2010 exceeds $4bn USD. The High Court in
London has ruled against all Mr Deripaska's motions that challenged British
jurisdiction for the case and the court will hear the case on its merit in
April 2012.

In April 2009 Israeli publication Haaretz noted that this
London suit was the cause of Mr Deripaska and his advisers undertaking large
scale attempts to discredit Mr Cherney in Europe and Israel. In addition to
attempting to damage Mr 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, Mr 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. Mr Cherney claimed that Mr 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".

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.

Contact: newagenews2011 at gmail.com, +44(0)7909-975-039