Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

www.robertamsterdam.com Moscow - A former Yukos oil company lawyer imprisonedon embezzlement charges will not be released to give birthdespite a campaign by supporters who say she is the victimof a Kremlin campaign against her ex-employer.

Svetlana Bakhmina, 39, instead has been transferred to a Moscow clinic from a prison about 370 miles (600 kilometers) east of the Russian capital, prison officialssaid. She has been in custody since her December 2004 arrest and is due to have her third child within weeks.

Human rights groups and more than 86,000 Russian-speaking Internet users have signed an online petition demanding that President Dmitry Medvedev pardon Bakhmina, who has twice been denied parole after becoming pregnant following a prison visit by her husband.

Advocates for Bakhmina say most pregnant women who have served more than half their term and did not commit violent crimes are typically granted parole and Bakhmina is a victim of selective justice.

Some critics believe she was punished for the actions of some of her bosses, who managed to flee the country as authorities probed Yukos in connection with the case against its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, is in prison and has served more than half of an eight-year term after being convicted of embezzlement. Many view his arrest as Kremlin punishment for his political ambitions.

Bakhmina's lawyer, Ruslan Golovkin, has been denied access to her since last month. He said Thursday he only knew that "she is in the Moscow region somewhere."

"She has been moved to a clinic near Moscow with the same facilities," said Alexander Zaitsev, a spokesman for Russia's Federal Prisons Service. He refused to name the clinic or say when Bakhmina was moved.

Bakhmina was detained in connection with an asset-stripping investigation that focused on Yukos' Tomskneft subsidiary. She originally pleaded innocent on the grounds that actions she took were at the behest of superiors.

Bakhmina has admitted her guilt, Golovkin said, and on Oct. 20 filed a request to be pardoned on the grounds of good behavior and because she had served more than half her sentence.

State-controlled media have ignored her case, but the online campaign to get her pardoned appears to be gathering steam.

"How much torture can a person suffer? God give her strength," Yekaterina Kolokoltseva, an economist from St. Petersburg, wrote on bakhmina.ru.

Other Internet users, however, have set up an opposing Web site called bakhmina.net- an Internet address that translates as "Bakhmina. No."

Golovkin said he didn't know who was responsible for the site, which calls for Bakhmina to serve out her term. More than 2,500 people appear to have supported the cause.

Some Russian commentators allege that the rival site may be a Kremlin creation, but there has been no evidence of any official link.

Bakhmina has two sons, aged 7 and 11. Golovkin said neither knows his mother is in prison.

"The television is turned off whenever there is a news bulletin about her," Golovkin said. "They are under a lot of stress already without a mother."