Moscow trial of ex-Yukos manager

Mr Aleksanyan says he believes he will die in prison

A former vice president of Russia's disbanded oil giant Yukos has gone on trial on charges of embezzlement.

Vasily Aleksanyan, aged 36, has been in detention since his arrest in 2006. He rejects the charges.

Last week, a Moscow court ruled that Mr Akeksanyan, who is reported to have Aids and cancer, could not be transferred to a clinic for treatment.

The jailed Yukos founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is on hunger strike in support of his deputy.

Mr Khodorkovsky is serving eight years in a Siberian prison after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion. He says officials are punishing Mr Aleksanyan for refusing to sign false confessions.

Independent examination plea

Prosecutors in Moscow have charged Mr Aleksanyan with embezzlement and money laundering dating back to the late 1990s.

Mr Khodorkovsky says his case is politically motivated

Mr Aleksanyan - who describes his trial as "a profanation of justice" - is expected to enter a not guilty plea.

His lawyers say he has developed serious health complications and is nearly blind.

But last Friday the court rejected Mr Aleksanyan's demand to be transferred to a clinic as groundless.

Russia's human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin has called for an independent medical examination of Mr Aleksanyan.

'Impossible choice'

In a letter posted on his supporters' website last week, Mr Khodorkovsky said Mr Aleksanyan had been refused medication and deliberately placed in poor conditions.

Mr Khodorkovsky, who was once Russia's richest man, said he had no choice but to "abandon the legal framework" and start a hunger strike.

"I am facing an impossible moral choice: admit to crimes I haven't committed and save the life of a man, but destroy the fate of innocents who will be charged as my accomplices," he said.

Mr Khodorkovsky's supporters have always said that his arrest was punishment for his support of pro-Western opposition political parties.

His international lawyer Robert Amsterdam said Russia was "flouting not only international law but the norms of morality".

Yukos saga

Yukos, once Russia's biggest oil company, was declared bankrupt in 2006 and ceased to exist as a legal entity in November 2007.

The company had been steadily dismantled after being accused of massive fraud and tax evasion by the Russian authorities.

Yukos maintained it was the victim of a concerted political campaign by the government, which wanted to discredit its executives and gain control of vital energy assets.

Russian officials deny the allegation.