Standart News

A huge propaganda machine has been employed in the campaign of oligarch Oleg Deripaska against businessman Michael Chernoy aimed to discredit him not only in Russia and Israel, but also in London. London-seated court is to conduct the hearings on Chernoy’s claim against Deripaska for the sum of five billion US dollars. The sum that Deripaska is to pay back to Chernoy, if the court sustains the latter’s claim, is quite substantial and that is why the black PR offensive against Chernoy is so vigorous. Startlingly, it is about to transform into a campaign against… England.
"It is necessary to launch a large-scale anti-English campaign,” writes the mysterious Abu Rinat al Buhari in an email message to Avigdor Eskin. Eskin, on his part, is trying hard to re-join the well-paid campaign against Chernoy, after loosing Deripaska’s trust in a series of blunders. These blunders have cost Eskin a lot of money and he is now trying to get back in the game.
However, Abu Rinat’s plan is far more devious and radical. He goes as far as suggesting that Chernoy’s legal claim against Deripaska should be presented as something much bigger – it should be emphasized in the media that the UK has sided with Chernoy and Berezovski. The decision of the English court that the hearings should take place in London, instead of Moscow should, according to Abu Rinat, be regarded as a hostile act on the part of England against Russia. And he immediately proposes counteractions – rallies should be organized against the UK embassies, petitions should be circulated stating that the British Themis is a mistress of oligarch Berezovski and the Russian MPs should denounce the UK as a tourist destination in their public speeches.
The fact that this may spark off a conflict between the two countries at doesn’t embarrass Abu Rinat at all. The important thing is to please the boss to whom he works – Oleg Deripaska. Meanwhile the latter doesn’t spare big money aiming to pocket huge sums later. He even plays with the idea of founding a special strategic research institute with a headquarters based in Israel and a subsidiary in London for probing the “risks of the infiltration of the Russian mafia into the strategic spheres of the Western world.” The institute was supposed to work hand-in-hand with the parliaments of Russia, Israel and England, where – as the conspirators claim – they have very strong lobbies. Naturally, the old foes of Chernoy, e.g. Dudu Appel, were not left out and drawn into the hatched plot. Appel is an Israeli businessman who was involved into a scandal with Premier Yehud Olmert years ago. Seeing the futility of their attempts, Deripaska’s plotters resort to well familiar tricks, such as corruption and pressure over the state institutions. One of the Deripaska’s ideologists is investigating journalist Andrey Kalitin, who seeks ways to strip Chernoy of his Israeli citizenship. He claims that without pressure over the Interior Ministry of Israel Chernoy will not face any problems with his documents, trumpet his victory and, thus, influence the court hearing in London.
BAGATZ, the High Court of Justice in Israel, confirmed the decision of the Interior Ministry to restore the passport to Chernoy, which really sets on edge the businessman’s enemies. They hope that in case Chernoy is expelled from Israel this may affect the course of the lawsuit in London. The only fact they oversee, though, is that there are laws and people who enforce them. Most of them cannot be bribed, as Deripaska and his accomplices hope.