The kidnapping of Mikhail Stavsky, Jnr., the son of Rosneft vice president Mikhail Stavsky, remains shrouded in mystery seven weeks after the student, whose age has been variously identified as 17, 18 and 19, was abducted by unidentified assailants in Moscow in broad daylight. There are still few clues about the case, which investigators only confirmed this week.
Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta on Monday reported the kidnapping as taking place outside the Russian State Oil and Gas Institute at midday on April 13, citing unidentified sources in the Federal Security Service. The next day, the Investigative Committee confirmed they had been investigating the crime since April 14, the day after the abduction.
"The assailants forced Stavsky into a BMW and disappeared from the scene of the incident," Vesti state TV news cited the Investigative Committee as saying.
Police are looking for a BMW seen in the area and facial composites have been issued for two suspects.
But few others are willing to comment on a kidnapping involving the relative of a highly-placed official at a company where Igor Sechin, the powerful deputy prime minister with responsibility for energy and industry, heads the board of directors.
Nikolai Manvelov, a spokesman for Rosneft, refused to comment on the case.
The news of the kidnapping comes at a sensitive time for Rosneft, ahead of its annual shareholders meeting later this month. Kidnappings in Russia are frequently associated with business disputes of one kind or another.
Rosneft plans to change its corporate charter at the annual meeting, dropping a previous requirement that company presidents have to have at least 10 years of experience in the Russian oil industry. The move could pave the way for the ousting of Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov, who has worked for the company since 1993, and his replacement by a non-oil industry business executive, a government official or perhaps even a foreign oil executive.
Manvelov declined to comment on the change in the proposed charter, but directed a reporter to go and look up the relevant item in the charter. Manvelov denied there was anything to rumours that Bogdanchikov was stepping down - a step that has been much discussed in recent years.
"I've heard [these reports] say that Sergei Mikhailovich [Bogdanchikov] has resigned. Well, he's still here, apparently he hasn't read them," Manvelov said.
Mikhail Stavsky, Snr., who attended the same Ufa-based oil institute as Bogdanchikov, was appointed as a Rosneft vice president in 2005. Prior to that he served as a vice president at Sibneft, an oil company then controlled by billionaire Roman Abramovich.
In 2004, Sechin, then deputy head of the presidential administration, was appointed as chairman of Rosneft's board of directors, sparking speculation in the media that he would try to squeeze allies close to Bogdanchikov out of the company. None of these reports have been confirmed.
The kidnapping of Stavsky has spawned further speculation. Investigators cited in news agencies say they are considering various motives, from ransom to attempts to put pressure on the victim or his family.
Gazeta newspaper said that the Novaya Gazeta report on the kidnapping may have been a planned leak aimed at incriminating those who carried out the crime, but not the actual organisers.
This may explain why reports surfaced so long after the actual crime, as investigators may have hoped that increased publicity may lead to the suspects who carried out the attack. But organizers are never implicated in such cases, Gazeta said.
"You can imagine what kind of place the person who ordered this kidnapping occupies," Novaya Gazeta quoted its source as saying. "To order the kidnapping of the son of someone in the team of Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin? It means that the organiser isn't even some general in the siloviki forces. Aim higher. He isn't afraid of anyone and is certain of himself."
Novaya Gazeta wrote that Mikhail Stavsky Jnr.'s parents had been told that the ransom was 50 million euros. According to a report from the Rosbalt news agency, however, Mikhail Jnr's sister, Natalya, denied that any ransom had been demanded, saying that the assailants had not contacted her family.
A source in the Moscow police directorate said that he had only learned about the kidnapping through the media, and that such cases were not very common in Moscow. However, he explained that in general investigators do all they can to keep such cases quiet so as not to harm the victims.
Usually kidnap victims were not "regular" people, and their relatives usually do not call the police straight away, he said. Large companies, meanwhile, employ private security firms to handle such situations, or act through insurance companies, he said.
Novaya Gazeta cited eight cases in the last four years of high-placed businessmen being held for ransom in Moscow, saying that some have yet to be released despite the ransom being paid.
The last time a kidnapping involved such high-placed officials as Stavsky, however, was in 2002, when Sergei Kukura, an executive at LUKoil, was held for several days amid near total silence from the company and security services.
Denis Shilin, a criminal kingpin with purported ties to the FSB and other power structures, currently hiding in Uruguay, may have orchestrated many of the Moscow kidnappings, including that of Stavsky, Novaya Gazeta claimed. Shilin was detained in 2005 for in an undercover operation involving ransom, but he was mysteriously released the following day, the paper reported. Shilin is protected by high-placed officials in the so-called siloviki structures, Novaya Gazeta reported, citing a source in the security services.
Andrei Aleshyn, a former police officer in Moscow's organised crime force, has recently been charged with kidnapping four people and holding them for ransom, Kommersant reported on Tuesday. Aleshyn is suspected of being a key figure in Shilin's organised crime group, which Shilin continues to control from Uruguay, the paper reported.
Dmitri Oreshkin, an independent analyst who heads the Mercator think tank, said the kidnappings were starting to resemble the situation in the North Caucasus. "In Chechnya there is so-called ‘constitutional order', which is neither order nor constitutional. In Ingushetia they are stealing relatives like chickens from a farm then selling them back to the officials for money stolen from the federal treasury. Same thing here. Top officials - Mr. Sechin and those close to him - aren't even capable of protecting their own relatives."
Rosneft files
The proposed Rosneft rule change New regulations for the company president are posted in a notice for the June 19 shareholders meeting:
Current rules dating from June 2006, (just before the Rosneft IPO in July 2006) include an article (missing from the new proposed rules) stating that the president must have worked in the oil industry for at least 10 years, or have at least five years of experience in top management of the oil industry.
Other previous requirements: the president must have an impeccable reputation and no previous unexpired criminal convictions.
The new rules introduce stricter measures for obtaining approval from the board of directors for the president to occupy other posts, including those in other companies.
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