MOSCOW, April 27 - RAPSI. The Moscow Simonovsky Court has suspended by three weeks its hearing of a petition filed by relative of former YUKOS vice president Vasily Aleksanyan to lift the freeze on his property.

The court told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI) that the case was postponed as one of the seven defendants in Aleksanyan's criminal case was not duly notified about the hearing.

Aleksanyan's relatives seek the court to lift the freeze on his house and car. The freeze was lifted after the case was closed in 2010, but the appeals court subsequently reversed the ruling.

Aleksanyan died on October 3, 2011 at the age of 39. He was arrested in 2006 alongside other YUKOS top managers on charges of stealing property from Tomskneft and shares of refineries and oil producing companies owned by the Eastern Oil Company (VNK). Aleksanyan spent nearly two and a half years in prison. His lawyers asked for his pre-trial conditions to be amended in accordance with his poor health, but his custodial sentence was later extended. On February 8, 2008 the former YUKOS top manager was moved from the pre-trial detention center to an oncological hospital. In summer 2010 the court terminated proceedings in his case as the statute of limitations had expired. He was never convicted or acquitted.

The YUKOS case has been one of the most high profile in Russia in recent years. In the early 2000s, the authorities accused the executives of YUKOS, then the country's largest oil company, of economic crimes. YUKOS then went bankrupt while its assets were transferred to Rosneft. Many in the West believe the case was politically driven, but Moscow denies these charges.

In 2005, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were sentenced to eight years in prison for fraud and tax evasion. In late 2010, a Moscow district court sentenced them to 14 years in prison for oil theft and money laundering. They were expected to be released in 2017, taking into account the time they had already served for their previous convictions from their first trial in 2005. However, on May 24, the Moscow City Court reduced their sentences by one year. They now look to be released in 2016.