A former Yukos oil company lawyer who gave birth while serving a prison sentence for embezzlement and tax evasion was released along with her child from a prison hospital on Monday, her husband said.
Svetlana Bakhmina, 40, had been in custody since her arrest in December 2004. She was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in a conviction that critics saw as connected to the politically charged conviction of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the subsequent dismantling of the company that was Russia's largest oil producer.
Bakhmina was denied parole twice while pregnant, angering human rights activists who argued pregnant women convicted of non-violent crimes are typically granted early release.
She was granted parole last week, with about two years of her sentence remaining.
Her husband, Mikhail Zhuralyov, said he collected Bakhmina and their 6-month-old daughter Anna from a Moscow-area prison hospital on Monday.
"She's out, what can I say? When all you do is wait, wait, wait it is very frustrating," Zhuralyov told The Associated Press. He said he did not know why his wife and daughter were kept in the clinic so long after the birth.
Zhuralyov said his wife was not ready to comment to news media.
Bakhmina was detained in 2004 in connection with an asset-stripping investigation that focused on Yukos' Tomskneft subsidiary. She pleaded innocent on the ground that actions she took were at the behest of superiors.
But her lawyers have since said that Bakhmina has admitted her guilt. On Oct. 20 she filed a request to be pardoned on the grounds of good behavior and because she had served more than half her sentence. Prison officials later said that she revoked the appeal.
The withdrawal of the pardon request and the recent parole have led some observers to speculate that authorities could have cut a deal with Bakhmina in exchange for testimony against her former boss, Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky and business partner Platon Lebedev were arrested in 2003 and sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for fraud and tax evasion.
They are now on trial on new charges that could bring 22 years more in prison if convicted.
The case against Khodorkovsky is seen by many as punishment for his failure to show fealty to the Kremlin and for funding opposition political parties, as well as a way for the state to increase its presence in the oil business.
Yukos was slapped with massive back-taxes bills and was auctioned off piecemeal, with many of its units being bought by state oil company Rosneft.
