Thousands of miles (kilometers) from the Siberian jail where its founder is imprisoned, representatives of the ruined Russian oil giant Yukos and the Russian government will meet face to face for the first time at the European Court of Human Rights this week as the dismantled company seeks to prove that its rights were violated.

Fearful it would never get a fair day in a Russian court, Yukos representatives filed a complaint with the European court on April 24, 2004 on the ground that it was "targeted by the Russian authorities with tax and enforcement proceedings, which eventually led to its liquidation."

Six years later, Thursday's hearing is a milestone in Yukos' efforts to win acknowledgment that the Russian government's actions were "unlawful, disproportionate, arbitrary and discriminatory, and amounted to disguised expropriation" of the company. Russian authorities had accused Yukos of shady deals and shell companies used to hide revenue from tax authorities.

Russian authorities began pursuing Yukos in 2002 on allegations of tax fraud. Through the courts, they ultimately froze its assets, forced it to sell its shares in other companies and declared it insolvent in 2006 before the company was finally liquidated a year later.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch who founded the company in the chaotic years that followed the Soviet collapse, was convicted on charges of fraud and tax evasion and has been imprisoned since 2003.

Yukos would not give up the fight, however, and representatives of the company's entities that managed to survive kept pressing the complaint they filed with the European court, which was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.

New York insurance law firm Anderson Kill & Olick, has named Larry Kill as chair of its Corpor ate & Commercial Litigation practice.

Kill has represented clients in a wide range of complex commercial litigation, with an emphasis on antitrust counseling and litigation, class action treble damage cases, trademark litigation and corporate person of interest criminal investigations.

Kill, a name shareholder who joined the firm in 1972, returns to the firm after a two-year hiatus at Reed Smith, where he has been a partner in the Antitrust and Competition practice.

Shane Kettner cried as he entered the pleas Wednesday in Portage County Circuit Court to three counts of first-degree intentional homicide and endangering safety.

Investigators found the bodies of 30-year-old Christine Gollon, 3-year-old Ashley Kettner and 2-year-old Griffin Kettner on April 30 after breaking into the family's barricaded home in Nelsonville. Gollon's mother had called police worried about her daughter's welfare.

Kettner was found with his infant daughter, Esther. Authorities say gasoline had been poured around the house and Kettner had written a suicide note.

The 36-year-old Kettner initially pleaded not guilty, then changed his plea to not guilty by reason of mental disease.

A California Marine accused of using Craigslist to arrange the rape of an ex-girlfriend in Wyoming has pleaded not guilty to five felonies.

Jebidiah James Stipe of Twentynine Palms, Calif., entered his plea in Wyoming's Natrona County District Court on Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Stipe posted an ad on Craigslist pretending to be a Casper woman and asking for someone to help play out a "rape fantasy." Prosecutors say a Bar Nunn man, Ty Oliver McDowell, replied to the posting.

McDowell is accused of raping the woman inside her home on Dec. 11. He has pleaded not guilty to five felonies.

A U.S. Marine Corps spokesman says Stipe was being discharged from the military "as a result of a pattern of misconduct" at the time of his arrest.

The state appeals court has upheld the involuntary manslaughter conviction of a woman in the June 2003 death of a baby in a Reading day care facility.

Ann Power had challenged her conviction in the death of 3-month-old MacKenzie Corrigan of Stoneham, who died of shaken baby syndrome after being injured in the day care facility Power ran in her home.

Power was convicted in 2006 of involuntary manslaughter by reasonof wanton or reckless conduct and received a three-to-five-year sentence. She also pleaded guilty to operating a family day care home without a license.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court rejected her appeal in a 16-page opinion written by Judge Mitchell J. Sikora.

A Luxembourg court ruled on Thursday that investors who lost money to Bernard L. Madoff through a fund set up by UBS cannot seek compensation directly from the Swiss bank, Reuters reported.

In November, private and institutional investors who lost money through the LuxAlpha fund, set up as a vehicle for wealthy investors to invest in Madoff funds, sued UBS and Ernst & Young for “seriously neglecting” their supervisory duties of the fund.
But the court rejected the demands of the investors, who wanted to file individual claims against the bank, rather than having to go through the fund’s liquidators, Reuters said.

Franc Greff, who represents clients in four of the 10 cases being reviewed, told the news service he would appeal the decision.