Former Yukos lawyer released from jail

The former lawyer of the bankrupt Russian oil giant Yukos, Svetlana Bakhmina, has been released on parole.

She and her five-month-old daughter were taken home by her husband.

On April 21, a Moscow court decided to fulfill her request for parole. There was some confusion over Bakhmina’s release the same day, but it’s only today that she was finally set free.

In 2006, a Moscow court sentenced Bakhmina to seven years behind bars for theft of property and tax evasion as a member of an organized criminal group. She was arrested two years earlier on charges of theft of eight billion rubles from the Tomskneft oil company, one of Yukos' affiliates.

Bakhmina had previously made two unsuccessful appeals for early release. Last year she appealed for a third time as she was pregnant. She gave birth in prison in November.

Yukos was declared bankrupt three years ago. The company’s former head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence for fraud.