 On April 21, 2009 she was released from jail.Commentators claimed that Svetlana Bakhmina was not guilty of any offence, but she was in effect a political prisoner due to political vendetta by the authorities against Yukos and its executive officers.The allegation claimed that the prosecuting authorities were not able to lay hands on the Yukos legal executive general counsel Dmitry Gololobov, and thus chose to prosecute Svetlana Bakhmina because she was the only legal officer they could find.